Bye Bye Uber in Korea?

We may see the end of Uber in Korea.  The Korea Telecommunications Commission has requested the Korea Prosecution to file charges against the management of the company for the violation of a law related to location monitoring technology.

The Korea Telecommunications Commission claims Korea’s Telecommunication Law requires all companies to register with the Commission any location monitoring services utilized in Korea.  Many of our favorite apps use location monitoring and are not registered with the Commission. 

The Seoul Government is in a fierce fight to ban the app in Korea, seemingly, as a means to protect taxi companies and private tax drivers. 

We suspect that the Korea Telecommunications Commission will soon block the app from usage in Korea.  The Commission blocks the usage of many websites in Korea that are, inter alia, against the interest of the nation.

The blockage of the app, may lead to the end of the Uber app in Korea.  This decision will be a welcomed occurrence for hotels, that will, likely, use this holding as a precedent to ban AirBnB.

As of the posting of this article, the Uber app is not blocked in Korea. 

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Sean Hayes may be contacted at: SeanHayes@ipglegal.com.

Sean Hayes is co-chair of the Korea Practice Team at IPG Legal. He is the first non-Korean attorney to have worked for the Korean court system (Constitutional Court of Korea) and one of the first non-Koreans to be a regular member of a Korean law faculty. Sean is ranked, for Korea, as one of only two non-Korean lawyers as a Top Attorney by AsiaLaw.

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