By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
Korean telecommunications and Internet companies have long been denounced for their loose management of subscriber information. And now, they are about to be bombarded by lawsuits from angry customers.
A coalition of four major civic activist groups, led by the Citizens' Coalition for Economic Justice (CCEJ), said Wednesday it will gather participants for a class-action lawsuit against Hanarotelecom, a fixed-line telephony and broadband Internet carrier for abusing the personal information of its customers for telemarketing.
The unlawful marketing activities landed Hanarotelecom a 40-day business suspension from the Korean Communications Commission (KCC), the country's telecommunications and broadcasting regulator, that ends on Aug. 8.
More than 13,000 Hanarotelecom users have already signed up for the suit against the company, pushed separately by lawyers Kim Borami and Ryu Cheol-min, both seeking compensation of about one million won per person.
CCEJ and the other civic groups ― YMCA Korea, Green Consumer Network and Consumers Korea ― had also planned lawsuits against LG Powercomm, Hanarotelecom's broadband rival, and Interpark, an online shopping mall for forcing customers to provide personal information to affiliate companies or business partners for marketing purposes.
However, the two companies avoided the suits by promising to adjust the terms of their consumer contracts, leaving Hanarotelecom singled out.
``We believe that Hanarotelecom should get the consent of its customers when it hands their information to SK Telecom's sales offices or mobile vaccine companies, but it seems the company doesn't agree," said Jeon Eung-hwi, a representative from the Green Consumer Network.
The civic groups are also considering pushing a lawsuit against Internet company, Daum, which has been accused of lax security measures. Daum's e-mail subscribers were left baffled when they were randomly directed to other users' accounts for about 50 minutes Tuesday. The company explained that the error occurred while running programs to update its mailing system.
Hanarotelecom is certainly painted as a pariah, but it is hardly the only info-tech unit bracing for the legal troubles.
Online shopping site Auction, the Korean version of E-Bay, is being bruised and battered by an endless series of lawsuits after a hacker attacked its database in February and accessed the subscriber information of about 10 million customers. Nearly 30,000 Auction customers have signed up for a class-action lawsuit being pushed by several law firms.
Law firm Next Law, which is also involved in the Auction suits, is gathering participants for a class action lawsuit against LG Telecom, which was accused of providing subscriber information to Internet content provider, M-shop.
The civic groups had been looking to prevent Hanarotelecom providing subscriber information to the sales offices of SK Telecom, the No. 1 wireless carrier that acquired the troubled fixed-line company in February, without consent.
However, Hanarotelecom, which has been looking to tap SK Telecom's customer pool by offering ``bundled services,'' combining fixed-line, mobile, Internet and Internet television services in a single package, is reluctant to categorize SK Telecom's sales offices as a ``third party.''