Tag: Naver

Due to outside pressure the Yoon administration is now having to provide public updates on what they had previously been handling quiety with the Naver issue and Japan:

The presidential office said Tuesday a report set to be filed with the Japanese government by LY Corp. will not include plans for stake sales by the South Korean portal giant Naver Corp.

Naver has been under pressure from the Japanese government to “review its capital relationship” in LY Corp., the operator of Line controlled by a joint venture between Naver and SoftBank of Japan, over a massive data leak of user information. 

“We have been communicating with Naver, and LY’s report set to be submitted to the Japanese government will not include plans for Naver selling stakes,” a high-ranking presidential official said over the phone.

“The Japanese government should not disadvantage Naver because the report did not include a stake sales plan,” the official added.

It marked the first time for the presidential office to directly address the possibility that Naver would not sell its stakes to SoftBank.

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but to sum this whole issue up, the Japanese government was unhappy with the massive data leak Naver’s Line app had. The Japanese government then pressured Naver to improve cyber security or consider selling Line to someone who will. The Korean left predictably decided to turn this into a anti-Japan issue, which now has caused the Yoon administration to make public statements instead of trying to handle this issue quietly with the Japanese government.

By the way the Japanese government never even issued any formal guidance to sell Line:

Sung noted the Japanese government has stated several times there was no mention of a stake sale in the administrative guidance it issued to LY, Line’s operator, earlier this year, nor any reference to control of the company.

Once again this is a cyber security issue. Naver needs to fix the cyber security for their Line app and then the Japanese government will leave them alone. Did I miss anything?

Just as I suspected, the Yoon administration is trying to handle the Naver situation quietly while the Korean left is trying to turn it into an anti-Japanese bilateral political issue. It is all pretty predictable:

The government will respond firmly and strongly to any unfair overseas treatment of South Korean companies, the presidential office said Monday, as the Japanese government has appeared to pressure Naver to sell its stake in the operator of Line, the biggest messenger app in Japan.

LY, the operator of Line, is controlled by a joint venture between Naver — South Korea’s biggest internet portal operator — and SoftBank of Japan. Earlier this year, the Japanese government issued administrative guidance to LY to “review its capital relationship” with Naver, over a massive leak of user information last year, which was interpreted as pressure on the South Korean company to yield control of Line’s operator. (……)

Sung added the government has been checking the Japanese government’s position via diplomatic channels, including through the South Korean Embassy in Japan.

He also sought bipartisan cooperation from political circles, saying, “It is clear that the political frame of some encouraging anti-Japan sentiment damages national interest, and is unhelpful to protecting our businesses and reflecting our interests.”

Yonhap

You can read more at the link, but it is pretty clear the Japanese government is simply putting pressure on Naver to fix the cybersecurity issues.

The Korean left is trying to turn a data leak dispute involving Naver’s Line app service in Japan into a major bilateral political issue:

Korean politicians are criticizing Seoul’s passive response to Tokyo’s apparent pressure on Korean tech giant Naver to sell its stakes in LY Corp., the Tokyo-headquartered operator of mobile messaging app Line.

They, from both ruling and opposition blocs, called the Korean government’s diplomacy “miserable” as it has not made any response while Japan is trying to “extort” technologies of the Korea-developed app, which has approximately 180 million active users in Japan and Southeast Asian nations.

Their criticism follows the Japanese government’s administrative guidance to LY to review its capital relationship with Naver after a massive data leak of user information. 

The guidance is believed to be an apparent pressure to lower Naver’s control over LY. SoftBank, which jointly owns LY with Naver, said it is talking with the Korean company about controlling the joint venture.

Lawmakers of the main opposition Democratic Party of Korea (DPK), who serve on the Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee and the Foreign Affairs and Unification Committee, held a press conference Sunday, calling for a National Assembly-level response to Japan’s attempt to “extort Line” from Naver.

“The Japanese government’s actions are a clear violation of national interests and an anti-market outrage. It is time for the National Assembly to do its job. We demand that relevant standing committees be convened immediately and the Assembly deal with the matter,” Reps. Jo Seoung-lae and Lee Yong-sun said. 

“The Yoon Suk Yeol government should no longer turn a blind eye and respond proactively by upgrading this situation to a major diplomatic issue between the two countries.”

They also said the Korean government should take a strong stance, including summoning the Japanese ambassador to Korea.

Last week, the DPK called the Korean government’s response “a diplomatic disaster,” saying, “How long must we endure the dismal diplomacy that cannot even say a word of protest against Japan’s effort to take Line from Naver?”

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but what we don’t know is what the Yoon administration may be quietly trying to do in discussions with the Japanese side to advocate for Naver.

This is an interesting to see how both CEOs perform leading two of Korea’s biggest IT brands:

Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon, left, and Kakao CEO nominee Chung Shin-a / Courtesy of each company

Naver and Kakao, Korea’s two major internet companies, are in a female leadership contest after the latter recently nominated Chung Shin-a, chief of the group’s venture capital unit, as CEO, according to industry officials and experts.

Naver, operator of Korea’s most used internet portal service, and Kakao, which owns the most popular mobile chat app KakaoTalk, are both to be run by female CEOs.

Of note, is how these two CEOs will lead the internet giants in the AI era, they said.

The appointment of women as CEOs in a rapidly changing IT industry is explained by their expertise in the sector, they said. Also, by appointing women as new leaders, the companies can expect to refresh their image.

“What is expected from female CEOs is not only their expertise but that they can scrutinize the business more thoroughly as women,” Kim Dae-jong, a professor of business administration at Sejong University, said.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link.

China continues to economically retaliate against South Korea as trilateral security cooperation between the U.S. and Japan improves:

Person holding a cellphone with logo of Naver on screen [SHUTTERSTOCK]

Korea’s largest portal Naver has been blocked in China at a tricky time when the United States and its allies are presenting a more united front against Beijing and Beijing is pushing back.  

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Tuesday that it is looking into the case with other government agencies.  

“We are aware of the related reports. [The ministry] is checking the matter jointly with related government agencies,” said Foreign Ministry spokesperson Lim Soo-suk on Tuesday.  

Joong Ang Ilbo

You can read more at the link.

You would think major companies like Kakao and Naver would have a more robust back up server capabilities to have resiliency against unexpected incidents like this:

KaKao, the operator of Korea’s dominant messaging app Kakao Talk, has restored 40 percent of its data center’s servers, an executive said Sunday, as it is working to fully repair its services disrupted by a fire.

The tech giant has restored 12,000 servers out of 32,000 at its data center in the SK CC building located in Pangyo, just south of Seoul, said Yang Hyun-seo, Kakao’s vice president handling the company’s relationship with the government.

“It is hard to tell exactly how long it will take before Kakao Talk and other services can be fully restored,” she said at the site, citing a massive server loss.

Kakao has servers in Pangyo and Anyang, both in Gyeonggi Province that surrounds Seoul, as part of its risk management policy, but the fire, which has been extinguished, was unexpected, according to Kakao.

The fire broke out Saturday in the SK CC building, which houses the data centers of Kakao and the country’s leading search engine Naver, a rare accident that disrupted both tech giants’ services.

President Yoon Suk-yeol instructed officials to make efforts to ensure Kakao can quickly resume its services as he called on the company to find out the exact cause of the fire and come up with measures to avoid future disruptions of services.

Korea Times

You can read more at the link, but the Yoon administration jumping into this makes it seem like it is a national emergency. I think people can survive a day or two without a social media site and search engine service.

It's been well known that #Naver is corrupt. Search rankings go to the highest bidder, unlike other reputable search engines, like Google and Bing. https://t.co/Uve0hxyTaV

— KingSejong (@KingSejong) November 11, 2017

Naver Unveils Self-Driving Car https://t.co/fsmrmzJymq pic.twitter.com/pzNwGoFbY4

— The Chosun Ilbo (@EnglishChosun) March 31, 2017

I happened to come across probably the only expat tech K-blog which has a lot of tips for people to check out.  The blogger’s latest tip is how to send and receive Naver mail in your Gmail account:

When you’ve created your Naver account, you may decide that using Naver’s webmail client (네이버 메일) is difficult or bothersome, because it is entirely in Korean, and a bit cluttered. I personally prefer sending/receiving my Naver Mail through my G-mail account.

G-Mail has a setting to automatically forward all mail to another account, but Naver Mail does not. Worry not; it’s easy to get all your Naver Mail in G-mail using POP3. The process is super simple.  [10 Won Tips]

You can read the rest of how to set this up at the link.