By Kim Tae-gyu
Staff Reporter
Google, the world's foremost search engine, is expected to accommodate the requests of the South Korean government on an adult authentication system.
The Ministry of Information and Communication yesterday said the U.S.-based Google agreed to check ages of users, who search for adult-only sites.
``Earlier this month, Google officials here pledged to phase in the system to its Korean-language search service,'' said a ministry director, who declined to be named.
``The firm seems to go through proper procedures like obtaining a green light from its U.S. head office,'' he said.
Most of Korea's major search portals have confirmed that users are at least 19 years old before showing query results that contain sex-related keywords.
However, Google refused to do so for its Korean-language search engine, which made a debut in 2001 but has struggled to find its feet thus far.
``Google is not legally mandated to check whether Internet users are over 19 years old before demonstrating search results for obscene content,'' he said.
``However, we hope that Google will keep its commitment to installing a safeguard to block children's access to adult sites in a similar manner as other popular search sites,'' he said.
Google Korea refused to confirm the introduction of the system but confirmed that the company will come up with various measures to shield minors.
``We are putting forth genuine efforts to generate the best solution to protect Korean children and adolescents from any pornographic material,'' Google Korea spokesman Lois Kim said.
``We will unveil appropriate steps in the near future after consulting with the Information Ministry,'' she said.
Market observers projected Google might customize its so-called SafeSearch applications to local tastes to filter out pornographic sites.
SafeSearch is designed to filter Web sites including explicit sexual content and delete them from search results but its accuracy is not perfect.