Google, which has recently come under heat by lawmakers for allegedly receiving preferential treatment from the government, is willing to support Korea’s efforts to improve its local online environment, sources said on Thursday.

“The company has been in talks with the government on working closer together for some time now, before the current parliamentary audit,” said one source close to Google Korea, who declined to be identified.

The Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning also confirmed that Google is planning to take part in future policy consultation sessions.

“The sessions will focus on how Google, as one of the more transparent and advanced players in the business, can set the right examples,” said an official of the ministry’s Internet Policy team.

Google, the world’s largest search portal, tries to stringently manage its content to help users discern ads from other non-commercial data. It also publicizes some of the criteria for its search results.

“When Google takes more steps toward advancement, local portals and others, such as Facebook that also offers search options, may follow suit,” said another source.

Lawmakers this week bashed the Science Ministry for being too harsh against domestic portals such as Naver and Daum, while their overseas-based counterparts ― namely Google ― had more advantages.

Earlier this week, the Science Ministry drew up a set of recommendations aimed at improving the quality of Internet searches.

Portals such as Naver and Daum were prodded to make ads look more like ads and reveal search mechanisms.

Many believe these recommendations would eventually become mandatory, but the ministry insists they would have to undergo more policy consultations before they become fixed.

Naver became a prime target for the Park Geun-hye government on allegations that it was engaging in unfair practices toward both those who search for content and those who sell it.

Since then, Naver has tried to make amends by offering remedies to a number of its problematic practices but Science Minister Choi Mun-kee indicated he was far from satisfied, and that more could be expected against Korea’s top portal.

Meanwhile, figures provided by lawmaker Yoo Seung-hee showed that Google had caught up significantly with Naver, with the two neck-and-neck in terms of visitors. In fact, Naver barely beat Google in September with a monthly 31 million visitors, while Google had 30 million.

Naver is the world’s 311 largest search portal.

By Kim Ji-hyun (jemmie@heraldcorp.com)