NHN to have third party monitor search services
By Cho Mu-hyun
NHN, the company that manages Naver, said Friday that it plans to have a third party review the transparency of its keyword search service.
The firm has been surrounded by controversy and has faced criticism for questionable methods of choosing the most searched words and ranking them on Korea’s top portal.
With the December presidential election less than 100 days away, some observers have noted the need to control search word services or even shut them down completely because they sometimes instigate heated political debate that leads to slander.
“The standard of consumer demand for search words is high,” said NHN CEO Kim Sang-hun at a press conference at the Lotte Hotel Seoul. “There is anticipation from society at large for Naver’s search service to become more fair and transparent. We want to answer their demands and strengthen our services.”
Kim said the company will request a periodic review of the logic behind its most searched words, related word searches and automatically completed word searches to the Korea Internet Self-governance Organization (KISO). NHN will file a transparency report on the organization.
KISO is an alliance of five portal service providers, including NHN, Daum Communications, Yahoo Korea, SK Communications and KTH founded in March 2009.
The organization’s activities include reviewing online postings, servicing an illegal and damaging word hotline service shared by member portal companies and receiving reported illegal use of the Internet.
Though the NHN boss is the chairman of KISO, he said, “I have no power to make any decisions about the organization, which is decided by a policy committee consisting of 5 directors.” He also said that it was still under discussion how much company information the transparency reports will contain.
Mentioning a memorandum of understanding he signed with the Seoul Metropolitan Government to mitigate violence against women online, which he did in his position as the KISO chairman, he also hoped that there would be more governmental support for the private organization.
“It is a world trend that Internet topics are moving from being discussed by the government to the people at large. Having the government manage the Internet has problems such as belated reactions and the possibility of oppressing free speech,” said the CEO.
“Disclosing real names online was recently deemed unconstitutional by the Constitutional Court. That is why we believed it necessary to find a reliable, private agency to oversee our operations.”
Despite the new periodical review process, NHN said it had no immediate plans for full public disclosure of the logic behind the search word ranking system. Google Trends shows users specific details. “Though we understand the benefits of having a full participatory trend and word search service, sharing all the information can also have drastic consequences.” He said there was huge possibility of misuse for those who wish to manipulate the ranking service.
NHN said it is also planning a service similar to that by Google, tentatively named Naver Trend Service that will start testing in mid-October.
Also present, Han Seong-sook, who oversees the operation of the word search service at NHN, stressed that Naver provided an important part in Korea’s online culture and in assisting people in their daily lives: “Our service has been invaluable to people by providing traffic, weather and employment information to users.”