Naver urged to give up on 'online comments'
Naver CEO Han Seong-sook listens to questions from lawmakers of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party who visited the company's headquarters in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, Wednesday. / Yonhap
By Baek Byung-yeul
Naver is considering adopting an “outlink system,” which will lead newsreaders to the websites of news producers, amid growing public calls for the overhaul of its news management system.
Under the current “inlink system,” newsreaders read articles posted on Naver's platform, enabling the portal to generate huge ad revenues from users.
Naver CEO Han Seong-sook told lawmakers of the main opposition Liberty Korea Party the company may consider introducing an outlink system.
The lawmakers visited the company's headquarters in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, to protest alleged online opinion-rigging led by a power blogger nicknamed “Druking” and two of his followers. The three are suspected to have used software to increase the number of “likes” or “dislikes” on particular news articles and comments in an attempt to manipulate public sentiment.
Naver Chief Financial Officer Park Sang-jin also said Thursday the company is reviewing the feasibility of converting to an outlink system.
Stating that comments on news articles are another gate of communication among newsreaders, Park said the company will continue to seek a social consensus.
This comes a day after the country's leading portal operator announced it would limit the number of comments user accounts can post on news articles.
Previously, a user was allowed to write up to 20 comments per news article and needed to wait only 10 seconds to post additional comments.
The portal also limited the number of times a user can click “like” or “dislike” in one day to 50.
An expert says the outlink system can help the portal operator avoid controversies such as the ongoing online opinion-rigging allegation.
“Introducing an outlink system will be the easiest way for Naver to stay out of trouble,” said Lee Sang-jin, a professor at Korea University's Graduate School of Information Security. “There are a lot of ways to solve this issue. For instance, it can prevent such controversies by adopting an enhanced filtering system that can distinguish whether a comment is posted by a computer program.”
But the professor said it will be a tough call for the portal operator to introduce an outlink system as it needs to keep its visitors inside its portal.
“Naver makes most of its money by displaying ads. So it will be a tough call for Naver to convert to an outlink system as it is crystal-clear users will spend less time on the portal site,” Lee said.
Meanwhile, Naver posted an increase in sales in the first quarter of this year. The portal operator said it recorded 1.3 trillion won ($1.2 billion) in sales, a 21 percent increase from a year earlier.
However, its operating profit showed weak performance, recording 257 billion won in the first three months of this year. This is an 11.6 percent decrease compared with a profit of 290.8 billion a year earlier. Net profit came to 153.8 billion won, down from 211 billion won a year earlier.
Naver said its profit decrease was because the company hired more than 1,500 workers for the development of technologies such as artificial intelligence. It also spent more on marketing to expand services in the global market.