Naver head office located at Jungja-dong, Bundang-gu, Sungnam city

Real-estate agents and related professionals across the country turned out to fight to reduce excessive advertising costs for Naver and designate real estate information business under small business-friendly restrictions.

On August 14, Korea Real Estate Cooperative, or KORRECO, announced a statement titled, "Korea Real Estate Cooperative's position on Naver's perfunctory mutual cooperation plan for real estate information providers".

Through the statement, KORRECO claimed, "Instead of compensating real estate agents that provided information to the portal, Naver charged advertisement fees on them using its dominant status in the search engine market, which has nearly a 75% market share."

Regarding Naver's mutual cooperation plan, KORRECO said, "The plan is ignoring the real estate agents who are working hard in the field to barely make a living. Who is the plan for? Naver's determination of fees like admission fee and property verification fee may lead to strong competition among agents and even raise the advertising fee.

The cooperative said, "Naver should not announce a perfunctory plan for mutual cooperation to mislead public opinion, but to consider carefully for the genuine coexistence with many agents who are currently working hard in the real estate field."

The cooperative requested for the following: a) sharp reduction of advertising fees, b) prevention of ad competition through simplifying ad types, c) compensation for providing existing content, d) designating real estate information business that require small business-friendly restrictions, and more.

Na Yong-Gyu, KORRECO executive for advertising, said, "If Naver excludes real estate agents and keeps seeking for perfunctory mutual cooperation with real estate information providers, we will keep fighting for our requirement."