Coupang fined for own brand search engine rigging

South Korea's competition watchdog f ined e-commerce company Coupang for covertly manipulating its search engine algorithms in favour of its own label products. Coupang was fined 3.29 billion won (approximately USD 2.81 million) by the country’s Fair Trade Commission (FTC) for engaging in unfair practices related to its search engine algorithms, including tampering with its search algorithms to favour its own label products over those of third parties . The company was also found to have forced hundreds of sellers to reduce prices for goods sold on its platform - while simultaneously increasing prices on rival platforms . The investigation came hard on the heels of an on-the-spot inspection at the company's Seoul headquarters in Seoul following complaints by customers, civic groups and others that it had abused its market position by favouring its own brands products. Tampering with algorithms is common in South Korea’s e-commerce sector, according to t he Financial Times . ➕ June 2021. T he company's food delivery subsidiary Coupang Eats and its star rating system dr e w fire for mishandling a complaint that resulted in the death of a restaurant owner. ➕ March 2022. Coupang and its subsidiary CPLB came under investigation by the FTC for getting its employees to submit false positive reviews of its own brand products. System 🤖 Coupang 🔗 Operator: Coupang Developer: Coupang Country: S Korea Sector: Technology; Retail Purpose: Rank content/search results Technology: Search engine algorithm Issue: Accoutanbility; Competition/price fixing; Transparency

Date it happened

2021-08-01

Organisation involved

Coupang

Product, system or model

Coupang Commerce search; Coupang Video search

This is a record of what was reported, not a finding that anyone broke the law. If it names your organisation and you believe it is wrong, the corrections process is free and open to everyone.