Following Naver’s request for an investigation into Toss’s reward marketing practices, Toss has now launched a counterattack by raising concerns about Naver’s POS integration policy.
According to the IT industry on the 13th, Naver requested an investigation by the Southern Gyeonggi Provincial Police Agency in February of this year against Viva Republica, the operator of Toss, on charges of obstruction of business and violation of the Information and Communications Network Act. Naver believes that Toss’s reward-based marketing campaigns—such as its “check-in mission”—diminish search quality and could negatively impact its advertising business.
Reward-based marketing is a method that provides users with rewards, such as points, to encourage them to search for specific products or services. Naver states that it sent an official letter to Toss requesting that it take measures to prevent harm but did not receive an official response, and therefore intends to seek a ruling from law enforcement authorities.
The Federation of Small Business Owners also criticized Toss’s search missions on the 9th and urged the company to suspend them.
Amid this, Toss Place has raised concerns about Naver’s POS integration policy.
According to Toss Place, Naver currently operates the “Place Plus” service—which uses order and payment data from POS systems to display store information from Naver Place in its search and map services—and is currently integrated with 15 POS providers. However, Toss claims that Naver has not offered Toss POS the same opportunity for integration.
Toss Place submitted a proposal for POS integration to Naver in July 2024. The company stated that it requested negotiations on four separate occasions—in November and December of last year, and in February and September of this year—but received no response regarding the reasons for the rejection or a specific schedule for discussions.
Toss argues that Naver should disclose the POS integration criteria for Place Plus and apply them equally to all POS providers. They contend that if TossPOS was excluded simply because it is a Toss-affiliated service competing with Naver Pay, this could undermine fair trade practices.
Naver refuted Toss’s claims.
The Naver representative continued, “Toss is currently continuing its reward marketing campaign, which induces users to search for specific businesses or products within the Naver platform, thereby distorting Naver’s search results,” adding, “It is difficult to discuss collaboration with a party that continues to engage in illegal acts that interfere with our business operations despite repeated requests to cease such activities.”
This is not the first time Toss has clashed with other platforms over reward marketing.
Last July, Toss filed a complaint against Kakao for obstruction of business, alleging that links to Toss reward events were not being displayed properly on KakaoTalk. The legal dispute was resolved when Toss withdrew the complaint last July.
The conflict with Naver also shares a common thread in that it began when Toss’s marketing activities to attract users clashed with the operating policies of an external platform.
A Toss Place official stated, “The 150,000 small business owners using Toss POS are being disadvantaged in search results,” adding, “We are asking them to disclose the criteria applied to the 15 POS companies and apply them equally to us.”
With a police investigation into reward marketing and the Fair Trade Commission’s review of a complaint regarding POS integration proceeding simultaneously, all eyes are on how the conflict between Naver and Toss will unfold.
