Foreign Internet companies say the country’s rules prevent them from competing against domestic rivals because they cannot provide the same services they do elsewhere. South Korea is one of the few major markets where Google is not the leading search engine. A South Korean rival, Naver, has the most users.

But domestic criticism of the Korean approach to Internet regulation is growing. Civil liberties advocates successfully challenged the rule requiring users of Internet discussion groups to provide their real names, verified by a national identity registration system. A court last year struck down the measure, which was introduced in 2007 to try to curb online bullying after a rash of suicides.

Now the government of President Park Geun-hye is moving to ease some of the Internet regulations. Ms. Park wants to encourage creativity in the South Korean high-technology industry, which is very good at developing hardware like smartphones and television sets but not as good at exporting software and services. Critics say the different rules that South Korean companies have to play by limit their ability to think in a worldly fashion.

In September, the government promised to ease the restrictions on online mapping services. The National Geographic Information Institute, part of the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport, said it would make an official English-language digital map available to Internet companies, beginning this month for companies based in South Korea. The ministry said the policy would help foreign Internet companies and to clear up uncertainties over Korean place names.

The move comes amid a new flare-up in a longstanding dispute over a group of islets between South Korea and Japan known variously as the Dokdo in Korea, the Takeshima in Japan and the Liancourt Rocks in some other places. (The islands are either in the Sea of Japan or the East Sea, another naming dispute.)

For Google and other foreign companies, there is a hitch. They will be permitted to use the map as of next year, on a case-by-case basis. Now, Google adapts its English-language maps of South Korea from the government’s Korean-language maps. Google is permitted to provide directions using public transit systems like the Seoul subway, because train and bus routes and schedules are available through public records.