People Power Party Visits Naver to Protest... Industry Points Out 'Double Standards'

Pressure over issues already clarified or arising from misunderstandings

[Asia Economy Reporter Jin-gyu Lee] Within the industry, there are murmurs of hypocrisy regarding the visit by People Power Party lawmakers to Naver headquarters to lodge a protest. The opposition party, which had attacked Democratic Party lawmaker Yoon Young-chan's Kakao-related messages as pressure on the portal, is now visiting Naver in protest, which is seen as a different level of pressure.

According to the IT industry on the 13th, People Power Party lawmakers from the National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting and Communications Committee and the Political Affairs Committee are scheduled to visit Naver headquarters in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province on the morning of the 14th to meet with Naver CEO Han Seong-sook. At this meeting, the lawmakers are expected to protest the controversy over bias in portal news editing and demand the attendance of Naver Global Investment Officer (GIO) Lee Hae-jin at the National Assembly audit. However, the industry points out that the protest visit itself constitutes pressure on the company. Previously, when Yoon's inappropriate text messages caused controversy, the opposition criticized, saying "the government and ruling party are exerting pressure on the portal." An industry insider commented, "Political attacks on Naver have been repeated at every audit, but this time it is in the form of a protest visit, which is a form of pressure."

The reason for the protest visit also involves issues that Naver has already explained or that stem from misunderstandings, which can only be interpreted as People Power Party's intention to pressure Naver. During this protest visit, the lawmakers are also expected to question the suspicions regarding search results for Minister of Justice Choo Mi-ae. Recently, some in the opposition have pointed out that when searching for 'Choo Mi-ae' on the Naver mobile application, the 'tab order' displayed at the top differs from that of other politicians, and that when searching with the English keyboard, the automatic conversion results do not appear immediately. In response, Naver explained, "An error occurred in preference aggregation due to spaces included during the search term input process," adding, "Even with the same search keyword, search patterns differ between mobile and PC environments, so search results may vary."

People Power Party lawmakers are also expected to raise suspicions about the search algorithm in relation to the Fair Trade Commission's imposition of fines on Naver Shopping and video services. On the 6th, the Fair Trade Commission imposed a fine of 26.7 billion won, stating that Naver Shopping and others altered their search algorithms to favor their own products without informing competitors. In response, Lee Yoon-sook, head of Naver Shopping, appeared at the National Assembly Political Affairs Committee audit on the 8th and stated, "We use the same ranking algorithm across Naver Smart Store, various off-marketplaces, and other shopping malls," adding, "There was no manipulation of shopping search rankings."