COOPERATION FOR CUSTOMERSKakao Mobility said it sought partnerships with other taxi-hailing service providers to deal with various issues such as multiple bookings for single services on different platforms and canceling them as per the government’s policy.“Many taxi drivers of other franchised service providers canceled calls of Kakao T to select profitable routes,” Kakao Mobility official.“We agreed to share necessary information with other service operators to reduce customer inconvenience.”Kakao Mobility has not used additional data collected from competitors for its own businesses, according to the company.“The data the FTC mentioned was the same as the information obtained when using basing navigation systems such as departure-arrival coordinates, travel routes and real-time GPS,” the company said.
Kakao Mobility blocked the drivers from accessing its ride-hailing app Kakao T unless its rivals accepted the demand, according to the watchdog.“It was to punish anticompetitive activities by a giant platform that unfairly used its market dominance to extend its supremacy into neighboring markets,” said FTC Chairperson Han Ki Jeong.“It is an example of the judgment that a practice of asking rivals to provide confidential business information and using it could hinder fair competition.” Kakao Mobility said such practices were agreed upon with competitors for customer convenience under the government’s policy, adding the punishments were so severe that they could hurt its competitiveness in the fight against global platform operators.
The company blocked the general service for competitors such as UT LLC., a joint venture between Uber and the country's leading navigation app operator Tmap Mobility Co.“The competing franchised service operators such as Tada had no choice but to sign the cooperation deals with Kakao Mobility to prevent member drivers from leaving them,” said an FTC official.
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