Baek Byung-yeul is a journalist at The Korea Times focused on cultural content, including films and cultural events in South Korea. You can contact him at baekby@koreatimes.co.kr to share your insights.
Kakao, SK C&C expected to clash over compensation for messenger service outage
Kakao's office in the Pangyo area of Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province / Yonhap
By Baek Byung-yeul
By Baek Byung-yeul
This photo, provided by Rep. Yoon Young-chan, shows batteries in the electric room of SK C&C's Pangyo data center facility in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province, on fire, Monday. Yonhap
A blame game over who is more responsible for the cause of the recent fire which resulted in KakaoTalks' lengthy service disruptions has begun as SK C&C, which provides the data center service to Kakao, appears to have a different opinion, according to the company, Tuesday.
On Saturday afternoon, a fire at SK C&C's data center in Pangyo, on the outskirts of Seoul, occurred, leading to service disruption for Kakao Talk, a messenger app service of Kakao for about 10 hours.
In the process of extinguishing the fire, SK C&C claimed to have asked Kakao's understating about cutting off the power supply to the entire server while Kakao claimed that SK C&C unilaterally notified it.
The industry view is that Kakao has begun a prelude to a lawsuit so as to claim indemnity from SK C&C after completing compensation for damage to its users.
The fire authority said that the fire occurred at an electric room of SK C&C's Pangyo data center in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province at 3:19 p.m. on Saturday. One of the batteries in the electric room caught fire and burned, causing power supply problems.
The fire authority said they used cooling gases to prevent further damage, but as the fire was not contained, the authority asked SK C&C to cut off the power supply so that it could use water at 4:52 p.m.
Accepting the request, SK C&C cut off the entire power supply of the data center, which eventually led to a service failure for Kakao Talk, and this is the point where the opinions of SK C&C and Kakao differ.
SK C&C said it explained to Kakao that it had no choice but to use water to extinguish the fire at the request of the fire authority and sought the understanding of Kakao that it had to cut off the power supply. But, Kakao refuted that and said that there was no process of seeking agreement.
The two sides also showed differing views on whether they planned to discuss compensation for damages between them. Kakao said, “We plan to discuss damages for losses of Kakao and its affiliates with SK C&C after normalizing our services.”
However, SK C&C said that Kakao did not discuss with them about compensation before making this announcement.
Kim Dae-jong, a professor at the School of Business at Sejong University, said “The major responsibility for this incident lies with SK C&C, which failed to properly manage the fire in its data center.”
However, the professor added that it is also hard for Kakao to avoid criticism saying, “The company has been too lazy to invest in facilities for stabilization.”
“The company said it has alternative facilities, but they didn't work properly. Even if there was a fire, there would have been no problem if Kakao could properly use its alternative service in the emergency situation,” he added.