The remember got here arose last year when a Seoul courtroom ruled in opposition to Netflix, which had been averting paying network usage fees to Internet service operators.

Netflix and Google have confronted similar troubles in Europe, the place a number of member international locations have asked the European Commission to order the corporations to pay their honest share of network expenses.

"Google and Netflix account for 34.3% of home traffic," Rep. Hong Suk-joon of the governing People Power Party stated at some point of a parliamentary hearing Friday. "As international corporations, it's their accountability to evaluate the hassle more proactively."

Rep. Kim Yeung-shik of the ruling party agreed: "Since they are the usage of the network, they pay the fees."

In response, Netflix Korea Director Liz Chung said the organisation was once making an attempt to find approaches to deal with the rising visitors the usage of the modern-day technology.

"Please take into consideration that Netflix has spent nearly $700 million on South Korean content," Chung said.

Rep. Yoon Young-chan of the foremost opposition Democratic Party said Google Korea had no longer paid the network costs either, citing the fact that the association paid simply $97 million in whole taxes remaining yr in Korea.

Rep. Kim Young-joo of the Democratic Party concurred.

"Koreans paid around $1.4 billion to Google the use of deposit playing cards last year. But it claims that its income had been a mere $200 million. We can't however suspect that the firm is evading taxes," she said.

Google Korea usa director Kim Kyoung-hoon said the Korean entity focuses solely on the advertisement side, while Google Play's commercial enterprise and revenue are the province of its Singapore and Asia-Pacific operations.

When requested about the number of Google Korea personnel and Korean subscribers to YouTube, Kim Kyoung-hoon said he did no longer know, angering lawmakers.