Airbnb fined over unfair biz practices in South Korea

SEOUL: South Korea's antitrust regulator on Monday announced to impose a fine and corrective measures on Airbnb Ireland UC, for its failure to properly verify information of short-term rental hosts for customers.

The home rental platform was fined 500,000 won ($379.6) for the violation of the country's electronic commerce act as it simply provided information about rental hosts just as they have uploaded without due verification procedures, according to the Fair Trade Commission (FTC).

Airbnb has also failed to appropriately mark detailed information about the company, such as the phone number for customer service, on its website in an act that even goes against its own identity information rules, reports Yonhap news agency.

The FTC ordered the company to take steps in accordance with the e-commerce law, saying the act is applied equally to foreign operators in case they do business here targeting domestic customers.

Airbnb is the fifth-largest accommodation service platform in South Korea with 1.04 million members here as of 2021, according to government data.