An Analysis of Korean Legislative Development in Relation with Economic Growth

Abstract

Ⅰ. Background and Purposes of Research □ Korea has rapidly emerged as a powerful IT country with a strong will to enhance its information systems and has begun to prepare legislation that can respond to the ever-changing IT environment. In other words, the brilliant growth of IT services and continuously changing environment required development of comparable policies and legislations. This will apply to other countries that may be seeking economic growth using the rapid IT development in Korea as a model. Therefore, it would be highly significant to present the Korean experience in IT legislation development, problems, and countermeasures to those countries. □ This research reviews the progress and changes in the policies and legislations concerning the Internet along with its development among the wide IT services. The government has continued efforts to include both the functions and dysfunctions of the steadily developing Internet in the legislation. Yet, there had to be inevitable gaps between the growth of the Internet along with its rapidly progressing technologies and the existing statutes. As there are limits to a perfect statutory regulation of all of the constantly developing Internet technologies, the respective legislation should be reviewed very carefully. □ Therefore, this paper will review development processes of the laws and systems Korea has prepared to address the development of the Internet and various incidental problems. It will examine them in a legislative perspective. In so doing, we intend to present a legislation model based on the processes of the laws and institutions to address the growth of IT and Internet Korea, which can be used as stepping stones for economic growth and overcoming economic crises.

Ⅱ. Research Content □ This research examines the changes in policies and legislation concerning the Internet along with its development. The Internetrelated statutes have repeatedly changed and progressed to address the changing environment. Even these days, the related statutes have key controversies concerning freedom of expression, protection of private information, copyright, and regulation of Internet services based on a grand premise of the openness and neutrality of the Internet. □ Chapter 2 will examine the significance of Internet legislation in connection with economic growth. In particular, it will examine the functions the Internet legislation has performed or will perform in connection with economic growth. □ Chapter 3 will examine the specific development processes of Korean Internet legislation. It will further analyze the chronological characteristics of the development processes of the Korean Internet legislation. Next, it will attempt to assess the key issues related to the development processes of the Internet legislation. Specifically, it will examine privacy protection, freedom of expression and copyright on the Internet. □ Chapter 4 will present the implications of the development processes of the Korean Internet legislation. The research contents presented under Chapters 2 through 4 will provide basic information that could be utilized for policy development and legislation by countries that plan to achieve economic growth based on information technologies.

Ⅲ. Suggestions of Research and Utilization Methods □ This research has examined and assessed the changes in policies and legislation concerning the Internet along with its development. In so doing, this paper intends to present a legislation model based on the processes of laws and institutions to address the growth of IT and Internet Korea, which can be used as stepping stones for economic growth and overcoming economic crises. This research will provide basic information that could be utilized for policy development and legislation by countries that plan to achieve economic growth based on the Internet and related information technologies □ The principal suggestion we can extract from our review of the Korean Internet legislation is that it tends to minimize or prevent dysfunctions of the Internet. Therefore, excessive Internet legislation should be avoided. The legislation should drive the development of the nation and society at a macroscopic level. □ The issue of privacy protection on the Internet is extremely significant as it can reasonably harmonize the functions and dysfunctions of the Internet. Therefore, the legislation should not be excessively inclined to avoid or prevent the dysfunctions. Rather, it should achieve a statutory regulation that can safeguard the desirable functions of the Internet. In other words, the legislation should protect the legitimate service relations as much as the statutes that regulate the protection of privacy. In other words, the legislation should not only protect individuals from the misuse or abuse of personal information but also ensure statutory protection and regulation concerning the collection of minimum-required personal information within its original purposes, the prohibition of its use in violation of the purpose of its collection, appropriate handling after collection purposes are achieved, and the right to be forgotten. □ The current legislation for regulating freedom of expression on the Internet tends to minimize its dysfunction. It is necessary to assess the legislation faithfully based on the original constitutional values. However, if the regulation on the freedom of expression cannot be compromised by the dysfunctions of the Internet, the legislation needs to protect the procedural rights of those who upload their expressions [on the Internet] and a new institutionbased autonomous regulation should be introduced as an efficient, reasonable alternative. □ The objective of Internet-related legislation on copyright should be to maintain a balance between the protection of civil rights and fair use of copyrighted materials. Therefore, the protection and reinvigoration of Internet services should also be considered as elements that need be considered for legislation concerning Internet copyright in addition to the protection of copyrighted materials and the protection of the users’ rights. From such a prospective, it is necessary to reconsider the scope and contents of the responsibility the current copyright law imposes on online service providers.