[Asia Economy Reporter Buaeri] Naver will terminate its real-time search term (rising search term) service on the 25th of this month.
'Real-time Search Terms' Disappearing After 16 Years
On the 4th, Naver announced, "We will end the rising search term service in line with changing trends," adding, "The 'Search Chart' section on the mobile Naver homepage will also be discontinued."
Naver explained the background by stating, "Users' internet service usage patterns have changed from before. Rather than passively consuming content provided unilaterally, users selectively consume content according to their tastes and preferences, and producing content themselves is also considered very important."
They added, "In response to the significant trend change where users want to actively consume information they need amid abundant information, we are ending the service."
Introduced in May 2005, the rising search term service analyzed users' searches and displayed them in order based on frequency and growth rate. The search term rankings served as indicators of the public's interests and trends. Various search queries entered by 30 million daily Naver visitors were reborn as information through the rising search terms. The service informed users about disaster situations, provided news on job openings at companies of interest, and even evoked memories through updates on celebrities' whereabouts.
The Never-Ending 'Real-time Search Term Controversy'
However, as much as it generated buzz, controversies, especially centered around the political sphere, never ceased.
In fact, in October 2019, during the appointment of former Minister of Justice Cho Kuk, the rising search terms were abused by both supporters and opponents with searches like "Arrest Cho Kuk" and "Stay Strong Cho Kuk," drawing social attention to the side effects. Issues were raised about some users deliberately using search term rankings as a means of political expression.
As these controversies continued, Kakao terminated the real-time issue search term service on its portal Daum in February last year.
At that time, Kakao explained the background by saying, "As part of fulfilling corporate social responsibility and creating a healthier society, we judged that the real-time issue search terms had deviated from their original purpose of showing natural results and had become the starting point of phenomena rather than reflecting results."
Meanwhile, Naver plans to continue utilizing search term data through its 'Data Lab' service, which provides search term trends, shopping insights, comment statistics, and more. Naver stated, "The purpose of 'rising search terms'?returning search term data received from users back to users as usable information?will be continued through 'Data Lab.'"
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