By Park Si-soo
Staff Reporter

The Supreme Court upheld a lower court ruling Thursday, ordering major Korean portal sites to compensate a man for failing to take steps to stop the spread of defamatory articles.

The judgment, the first of its kind in the top court, means that portals are to be treated the same as mainstream media, which are held liable for damages caused by articles they display on their Web sites, even if the stories were originally created by writers not affiliated with them.

``Portals are to compensate the victim because they did nothing, although they knew that the articles were apparently defamatory and in wide circulation,'' the court said in the ruling, ordering the accused to pay 30 million won ($22,500) to the victim in compensation.

The court said, ``The portals should have deleted such articles even before the victim's request to do so,'' but limited its ruling to cases where articles are defamatory, and the operator is capable of controlling the spread of the article.

In April 2005, a woman committed suicide after breaking up with her boyfriend. Infuriated, her mother posted a defamatory article online, which stated the boyfriend had sex with her daughter and then dumped her when she become pregnant. The article included the boyfriend's name, academic background, phone numbers and other private information.

It's uncertain whether the story is true, but it recklessly spread across the nation's four largest portals ㅡ Naver, Daum, Nate and Yahoo Korea.

That led the man to file his suit against the four portals.

pss@koreatimes.co.kr