Kakao Forms Fire Emergency Committee... "Damage Reports Accepted Next Week"

The scene of the fire at Building A, SK C&C Pangyo Campus, Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province on the 16th. The fire, which occurred around 3:30 PM the previous day at the SK C&C data center, caused services of server tenants such as Kakao and Naver to go down one after another. In particular, Kakao services including KakaoTalk messenger, portal Daum, KakaoT, KakaoPage, and KakaoPay experienced widespread outages, resulting in a nationwide 'blackout situation' lasting about 10 hours./Photo by Hyunmin Kim kimhyun81@

[Asia Economy Reporter Yoo Hyun-seok] Kakao announced on the 16th that it will launch an Emergency Response Committee (ERC) to fully respond to the service error incident.

Kakao stated, "Immediately after the fire at the Pangyo SK C&C data center on the 15th, the response control tower, which had been operating with executives and heads of each division, will be reorganized and launched as the ERC," adding, "The chairperson will be Hong Eun-taek, head of the Kakao Community Center (co-CEO of Kakao)."

The ERC is expected to include leaders from Kakao headquarters and major subsidiaries. A Kakao official explained, "Subsidiaries such as Kakao Pay and Kakao Mobility will participate," and added, "The exact participating companies and personnel are still under discussion."

The ERC will be composed of three subcommittees: the Cause Investigation Subcommittee, the Disaster Response Subcommittee, and the Compensation Policy Subcommittee. The Cause Investigation Subcommittee will accurately identify the cause of the data center fire, the delay in power supply, and the recovery process.

The Disaster Response Subcommittee will develop stringent measures to prevent similar incidents from recurring in the future. It will also be responsible for implementing these measures by gathering opinions from external experts.

The Compensation Policy Subcommittee will establish compensation policies for all stakeholders, including users and partners who experienced damage due to this disruption.

Kakao plans to set up a channel next week where affected individuals can report their damages and will begin accepting damage reports. Based on the reports received, discussions will be held regarding the scope and eligibility for compensation.

Hong Eun-taek, head of the Kakao Community Center, said, "We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused by this incident and are making every effort to restore services to normal," adding, "We take the concerns of the relevant authorities more seriously than ever, will cooperate faithfully with investigations and requests, prepare stringent measures to prevent recurrence, and simultaneously plan compensation policies for those affected by this incident."