Coupang said on the 1st it will file criminal complaints against more than 10 malicious partner firms that have repeatedly carried out so-called "ad hijacking," abusing its affiliate marketing service Coupang Partners to forcibly redirect users to the Coupang site without their consent.
Coupang Partners is a legitimate affiliate marketing service in which individuals or corporations promote Coupang products on blogs, websites, and social media (SNS), and receive back a certain percentage of the actual purchase amount generated through ads as revenue.
Coupang said the malicious partners have habitually violated the Coupang Partners terms of use and operating policies, and intentionally repeated the same conduct despite strong warnings and penalties.
In the case of Company A, it embedded a Coupang purchase link invisibly in an online site ad screen (space) it had bought, and users who accessed this site were forcibly redirected to the Coupang site even without clicking. Coupang said it determined that this conduct goes beyond a simple terms violation, damages Coupang's brand value, and causes serious interference with its business activities, and that it has begun legal proceedings.
To eradicate illicit ads by certain malicious ad operators, Coupang has continued to strengthen its illegal ad monitoring policy; operate strong penalties such as confiscation of revenue and account termination; expand its illegal ad reporting and reward program; and build dedicated monitoring staff and systems. This year, it revised its policies to strengthen operations so that even for a first violation, revenue can be confiscated for an extended period, and for two or more violations, the account can be terminated.
Coupang said it will continue to block inconvenient ads that infringe on customers' freedom to choose services and digital consumer rights, and will strictly hold all policy violators legally and institutionally accountable.
A Coupang official said, "We will apply a 'zero tolerance principle' to illicit ads that cause inconvenience to users and damage Coupang's brand value, and if necessary, we plan to add even stronger sanctions in the future to root out illicit ads," adding, "We will work with the government to make every effort to eradicate illegal and inconvenient ads."