South Korea’s Fair Trade Commission is increasing vigilance on big tech firms for possible antitrust actions using their dominance in the market, officials said Sunday.
According to FTC officials, a special task force, which was launched early this year to focus its surveillance on the tech industry, was looking into two new cases following its ongoing probe into U.S. software giant Oracle.
Amid growing speculation about another round of antitrust probes, industry watchers predicted Apple and Google could become the next targets.
Upon the launch of the new task force, FTC chairman Jeong Jae-chan had pointed out the dominance of the two U.S. tech companies in the nation’s mobile operating system market. Their combined share has exceeded 95 percent.
Naver and Daum Kakao, Korea’s top two search engines, have also come under heightened surveillance in recent years.
Last year, Naver was probed for unfair activities in the ad market but was spared punishment as it decided to come up with new fair trade measures, including setting up a new entity for socially responsible activities.
Daum Kakao, the operator of the nation’s No. 1 mobile messenger KakaoTalk, is still under investigation into whether its new mobile gift card business hurts existing companies and its contractors.
“New investigations, if any, could start in July when the Oracle case is completed,” an FTC official told a local news agency.
Oracle is suspected of selling its database management systems bundled with the company’s security patches and limiting consumer choice.
