The Korea Times
amn_close.png
amn_bl.png
National
  • Politics
  • Foreign Affairs
  • Multicultural Community
  • Defense
  • Environment & Animals
  • Law & Crime
  • Society
  • Health & Science
amn_bl.png
Business
  • Tech
  • Bio
  • Companies
amn_bl.png
Finance
  • Companies
  • Economy
  • Markets
  • Cryptocurrency
amn_bl.png
Opinion
  • Editorial
  • Columns
  • Thoughts of the Times
  • Cartoon
  • Today in History
  • Blogs
  • Tribune Service
  • Blondie & Garfield
  • Letter to President
  • Letter to the Editor
amn_bl.png
Lifestyle
  • Travel & Food
  • Trends
  • People & Events
  • Books
  • Around Town
  • Fortune Telling
amn_bl.png
Entertainment & Arts
  • K-pop
  • Films
  • Shows & Dramas
  • Music
  • Theater & Others
amn_bl.png
Sports
amn_bl.png
World
  • SCMP
  • Asia
amn_bl.png
Video
  • Korean Storytellers
  • POPKORN
  • Culture
  • People
  • News
amn_bl.png
Photos
  • Photo News
  • Darkroom
amn_NK.png amn_DR.png amn_LK.png amn_LE.png
  • bt_fb_on_2022.svgbt_fb_over_2022.svg
  • bt_twitter_on_2022.svgbt_twitter_over_2022.svg
  • bt_youtube_on_2022.svgbt_youtube_over_2022.svg
  • bt_instagram_on_2022.svgbt_instagram_over_2022.svg
The Korea Times
amn_close.png
amn_bl.png
National
  • Politics
  • Foreign Affairs
  • Multicultural Community
  • Defense
  • Environment & Animals
  • Law & Crime
  • Society
  • Health & Science
amn_bl.png
Business
  • Tech
  • Bio
  • Companies
amn_bl.png
Finance
  • Companies
  • Economy
  • Markets
  • Cryptocurrency
amn_bl.png
Opinion
  • Editorial
  • Columns
  • Thoughts of the Times
  • Cartoon
  • Today in History
  • Blogs
  • Tribune Service
  • Blondie & Garfield
  • Letter to President
  • Letter to the Editor
amn_bl.png
Lifestyle
  • Travel & Food
  • Trends
  • People & Events
  • Books
  • Around Town
  • Fortune Telling
amn_bl.png
Entertainment & Arts
  • K-pop
  • Films
  • Shows & Dramas
  • Music
  • Theater & Others
amn_bl.png
Sports
amn_bl.png
World
  • SCMP
  • Asia
amn_bl.png
Video
  • Korean Storytellers
  • POPKORN
  • Culture
  • People
  • News
amn_bl.png
Photos
  • Photo News
  • Darkroom
amn_NK.png amn_DR.png amn_LK.png amn_LE.png
  • bt_fb_on_2022.svgbt_fb_over_2022.svg
  • bt_twitter_on_2022.svgbt_twitter_over_2022.svg
  • bt_youtube_on_2022.svgbt_youtube_over_2022.svg
  • bt_instagram_on_2022.svgbt_instagram_over_2022.svg
  • Login
  • Register
  • Login
  • Register
  • The Korea Times
  • search
  • all menu
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • Photos
  • Video
  • World
  • Sports
  • Opinion
  • Entertainment & Art
  • Lifestyle
  • Finance
  • Business
  • National
  • North Korea
  • 1

    Song Joong-ki marries British woman, expects baby

  • 3

    Suicidal pedestrian saved over Han River bridge

  • 5

    Kim Jung-hyun returns to small screen with 'Kokdu: Season of Deity'

  • 7

    Youth, foreign drug offenders increase threefold in 5 years

  • 9

    INTERVIEWBusan has potential to be world-class city, says mayor

  • 11

    Samsung to introduce low-carbon diet for employees to help tackle climate change

  • 13

    Seoul International School celebrates 50th anniversary

  • 15

    Koreans reluctant to unmask on first day of eased indoor mask rule

  • 17

    Over 76% of South Koreans support development of nuclear weapons

  • 19

    S. Korea mistakenly fires machine gun near border with N. Korea

  • 2

    Japanese teen romance film attracts 1 mil. Korean viewers for 1st time in 21 yrs

  • 4

    Korea to lift indoor mask mandate Monday

  • 6

    US four-star general warns of war with China in 2025

  • 8

    K-pop releases for February

  • 10

    NK rejects alleged arms trading with Russia, warns of 'undesirable result'

  • 12

    'Someday or One Day' cast says film spin-off has new plot

  • 14

    Plum trees, pheasants and promises of old Korea

  • 16

    Base taxi fare to rise by 1,000 won to 4,800 won next month

  • 18

    Main opposition leader faces pressure to resign in case of indictment

  • 20

    3 dead, 4 hurt in upmarket Los Angeles neighborhood

Close scrollclosebutton

Close for 24 hours

Open
  • The Korea Times
  • search
  • all menu
  • Login
  • Subscribe
  • Photos
  • Video
  • World
  • Sports
  • Opinion
  • Entertainment & Art
  • Lifestyle
  • Finance
  • Business
  • National
  • North Korea
National
  • Politics
  • Foreign Affairs
  • Multicultural Community
  • Defense
  • Environment & Animals
  • Law & Crime
  • Society
  • Health & Science
Tue, January 31, 2023 | 09:50
Business
Korea joins privacy backlash over Google
Posted : 2010-08-12 19:25
Updated : 2010-08-12 19:25
Print PreviewPrint Preview
Font Size UpFont Size Up
Font Size DownFont Size Down
  • facebook
  • twitter
  • kakaolink
  • whatsapp
  • reddit
  • mailto
  • link

Google first deployed its Street Car vehicles on Seoul’s streets in October last year, but the debut of the localized version of its online mapping service has been delayed indefinitely, with police investigating whether the company has broken local privacy laws. / Korea Times
By Kim Tong-hyung

The South Korean government appears to have its own BlackBerry headache with Google as it continues to show uneasiness about the data on its citizens kept in foreign servers.

But privacy watchdogs here are unsure who to distrust more; a global corporation that intercepts e-mail messages, passwords and other sensitive information from unsuspecting Internet users or an increasingly-intrusive government that demands the data be handed over.

Korean police raided Google’s Seoul office on Tuesday, representing the latest extension of legal challenges the Internet giant is facing around the world over its controversial ``Street View’’ mapping service.

Investigators acting under warrant seized computer hard drives and company documents from the property during a search that continued for six hours as they

Google CEO Eric Schmidt
look into the allegations that Google illegally collected and stored personal data sent over unsecured Wi-Fi wireless networks. They unlawfully gathered communications records may include e-mail and instant messages, passwords and search histories, according to police.

It’s unlikely that the police will find anything meaningful from the haul as Google Korea says that the data collected from the Street View cars, which first appeared on the streets of Seoul in October last year, is stored in Google’s U.S. servers.
After analyzing the data from the hard drives, a process that may take more than a month, police officials are planning to bring in a number of Google Korea officials for questioning.

Street View allows users to see panoramic street scenes on Google’s digital photomaps. Google has been providing Street Views in a number of countries including the United States, Germany, Australia and Canada.

In May, Google admitted that its Street View vehicles, which have roaming Internet access and take photographs of cities in over 30 countries, ``accidentally’’ collected personal communications sent over public Wi-Fi systems in homes and offices, due to some rogue code in the software used by the service.

Google is increasingly coming under scrutiny for pushing legal and ethical lines related to personal privacy, as it desperately searches for new business models to combat emerging rival services, like Facebook (www.facebook.com), that are challenging its previously-undisputed online dominance. And there are critics who doubt Google’s claims that the information was gathered inadvertently.

But the raid on Google’s office here was unexpected, as the company has been talking closely with the Korea Communications Commission (KCC), the country’s broadcasting and telecommunications regulator, on how to handle the collected data and quell the fuss over privacy concerns.

Perhaps, the involvement of the police would have been inevitable at some point. The KCC, obviously not a law-enforcement body, has no legal rights to independently demand and seize communications records from private service providers for investigation, according to legal experts citing the country’s communications privacy law.

Apparently, this didn’t keep it from trying. And conversations with KCC officials hint that the regulator was focused more on retrieving the data from Google than destroying it.

``We needed specific knowledge of the information Google collected from local Wi-Fi networks and asked the company to submit the materials. The company replied that it would be possible to access the data through a network or a visit to its U.S.
headquarters, and these were the ongoing talks when the police raided Google’s Seoul office,’’ said an official from KCC’s network policy division, revealing that the regulator had considered requesting a police investigation into Google, although it had no prior knowledge of Tuesday’s raid.

``Google offered us access to some samples of the data it collected here should we visit the U.S. There is a need for us to analyze the content of the data, rather than just the list, to determine exactly what laws Google was breaking ... the discussions about whether to have the information destroyed or not could only come after that,’’ he said.
Google Korea officials were unavailable for immediate comment.

Google, from hero to villain

Korea is one of a dozen countries ― including the U.S., Canada, Germany, France, Britain, and Australia ― that are investigating whether Google broke their privacy laws in pushing out the localized versions of Street View.

Google, which claims it has done nothing with the collected data, insists that the ``fragments’’ of information collected by the Street View cars are hardly meaningful. Some security experts, as well as the police here, suspect that sensitive information such as e-mail messages, passwords and Web browsing records may have been compromised.

It was just a year ago when Korean Internet users praised Google as a safe haven for privacy. This was after it opted to cripple the Korean version of its YouTube (www.youtube.com) online video service to resist government regulations that require Internet users to make verifiable real-name registrations for leaving comments on major websites.

Google has since struggled to protect its ``don’t be evil’’ motto here, with smartphone users expressing anger over the company’s supposedly lax support for its Android mobile platform. The fresh privacy debacle over Street View has its public relations officials avoiding their cell phones again.

There are increasing calls for Google to improve the way it handles sensitive data. A confidential Google document, a seven-page ``vision statement’’ that was recently unearthed by the Wall Street Journal, proves that the company has been conducting serious internal debates about ways to monetize its vast amount of users over the past few years.

The rise of Facebook, which wasn’t even mentioned in the 2008 document, has certainly stoked Google’s sense of urgency. Although the fear of a privacy backlash had prevented Google from pushing targeted advertisements based on particular Web behavior, Facebook has been using the personal information of its customers more liberally, which has allowed advertisers wider freedom in targeting ads more specifically.

The growing presence of social media services such as Facebook, which now has more than 500 million global users, is threatening to Google, as this proves that a rapidly-growing amount of the world’s information is being walled off from its search index.

Google will continue to consider more ways to monetize the vast amount of personal data it had collected and stored for years, but advocates are worried about increasing government scrutiny.

Chang Yeo-gyeong, an activist from the Jinbo Network, expressed concerns about the government’s attempts to acquire the Street View data. The Lee Myung-bak government has been considering more ways to monitor Web behavior and impose rules on Internet users, which include limiting online anonymity and subjecting websites to libel laws.

``The KCC receiving the Street View data could be dangerous as the data may include more than just e-mail messages, but Internet protocol (IP) addresses as well. There needs to be careful consideration on whether the KCC could be violating the communications privacy law,’’ she said.
Emailthkim@koreatimes.co.kr Article ListMore articles by this reporter
 
Top 10 Stories
1Koreans reluctant to unmask on first day of eased indoor mask rule Koreans reluctant to unmask on first day of eased indoor mask rule
2Over 76% of South Koreans support development of nuclear weapons Over 76% of South Koreans support development of nuclear weapons
3[ANALYSIS] Pandemic awakens demand for data-driven automation ANALYSISPandemic awakens demand for data-driven automation
4Busan seeks to take lead in expo race after BIE's April visit Busan seeks to take lead in expo race after BIE's April visit
5Stock-leveraged investments rise again amid bullish KOSPI Stock-leveraged investments rise again amid bullish KOSPI
6Retailers seek to bolster beauty product sales as lifting of mask mandate approaches Retailers seek to bolster beauty product sales as lifting of mask mandate approaches
7Biohealth geared for growth Biohealth geared for growth
8SPC opens 120th Paris Baguette store in US SPC opens 120th Paris Baguette store in US
9NK slams NATO chief's Seoul visit as 'prelude to war'NK slams NATO chief's Seoul visit as 'prelude to war'
10Korea-US defense talks likely to bring up extended deterrence Korea-US defense talks likely to bring up extended deterrence
Top 5 Entertainment News
1Song Joong-ki marries British woman, expects babySong Joong-ki marries British woman, expects baby
2Kim Jung-hyun returns to small screen with 'Kokdu: Season of Deity' Kim Jung-hyun returns to small screen with 'Kokdu: Season of Deity'
3K-pop releases for February K-pop releases for February
4'Someday or One Day' cast says film spin-off has new plot 'Someday or One Day' cast says film spin-off has new plot
5Itaewon music fest brings love to the healing process Itaewon music fest brings love to the healing process
DARKROOM
  • Nepal plane crash

    Nepal plane crash

  • Brazil capital uprising

    Brazil capital uprising

  • Happy New Year 2023

    Happy New Year 2023

  • World Cup 2022 Final - Argentina vs France

    World Cup 2022 Final - Argentina vs France

  • World Cup 2022 France vs Morocco

    World Cup 2022 France vs Morocco

CEO & Publisher : Oh Young-jin
Digital News Email : webmaster@koreatimes.co.kr
Tel : 02-724-2114
Online newspaper registration No : 서울,아52844
Date of registration : 2020.02.05
Masthead : The Korea Times
Copyright © koreatimes.co.kr. All rights reserved.
  • About Us
  • Introduction
  • History
  • Contact Us
  • Products & Services
  • Subscribe
  • E-paper
  • RSS Service
  • Content Sales
  • Site Map
  • Policy
  • Code of Ethics
  • Ombudsman
  • Privacy Statement
  • Terms of Service
  • Copyright Policy
  • Family Site
  • Hankook Ilbo
  • Dongwha Group