Daily Life Paralyzed by a Single Fire... Some Services Unpredictable for Recovery
Platform Dependence Increased... "Lack of Consideration for Side Effects and Countermeasures"
[Asia Economy Reporter Yuri Choi] On the 15th, an unprecedented incident occurred where the "national messenger" KakaoTalk was down for two consecutive days due to a fire at the SK C&C data center. Not only KakaoTalk but also major services such as Kakao Mobility and Kakao Pay experienced outages, causing significant inconvenience to most of the public. The daily life paralysis caused by a single fire incident revealed the dark side of the "platform economy," where everything is connected through a single platform. Both the political sphere and industry are voicing concerns that this incident should serve as a wake-up call to strengthen the foundation of the rapidly growing platform economy.
Data Center Fire → Power Cut → Service Suspension, A Nightmare Weekend
According to the fire authorities on the 17th, a fire broke out at the SK C&C data center in Sampyeong-dong, Bundang-gu, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi Province, at 3:33 PM on the 15th. The fire started on a shelf storing batteries in the electrical room and was extinguished around 11:46 PM after about eight hours.
The fire caused a power outage to the servers, leading to problems with services of companies housed in the data center, including Kakao and Naver. In particular, most Kakao services such as KakaoTalk, Daum (portal), KakaoMap (maps), KakaoPay (remittance), Kakao Mobility (taxi and designated driver calls), Kakao Games, and Melon were suspended.
By 1:30 AM on the 16th, the day after the fire, some functions of KakaoTalk, such as message sending and receiving, were restored, but as of 9 AM that day, some functions like Daum and Kakao Mail or search were still not normalized. The exact time for full recovery remains unpredictable.
As the recovery was delayed, damages continued to accumulate. Users faced the inconvenience of having to send text messages individually due to the inability to use KakaoTalk, and many business operators suffered livelihood disruptions due to halted operations. The damage was widespread, affecting taxi and designated driver drivers operating through KakaoT, merchants selling products on Kakao, companies using business tools like Kakao Work, and public services linked to KakaoTalk and maps. With KakaoTalk's monthly active users (MAU) exceeding 47 million, almost no citizen was unaffected.
Primary Responsibility on Kakao for Neglecting Backup Network... Political Sphere Contemplates Platform Regulation
As the entire nation suffered tangible and intangible damages, calls for Kakao's accountability have arisen. The prolonged service outage caused by a simple fire has been criticized. It is pointed out that excessive reliance on a single data center without owning an independent data center exacerbated the damage. As an operator of national services, Kakao should have thoroughly prepared a crisis response system and carefully managed backup networks.
Furthermore, there is reflection on the need to consider the impact of the platform economy on our lives. While dependence on platforms has increased in the digital society, there has been insufficient consideration of side effects or countermeasures.
The political sphere is taking this matter seriously. They plan to strengthen the service stability obligations of platform companies and may slow down discussions on platform self-regulation promoted by the Yoon Seok-yeol administration. Democratic Party lawmaker Cho Seung-rae noted, "While the weight of our lives shifted rapidly online due to COVID-19, related policies and regulations have not kept pace."
Voices of self-reflection are also emerging within the industry. Platform companies have been criticized for focusing solely on growth through affiliate expansion while neglecting crisis response and social responsibility. Kakao is currently concentrating on service normalization and plans to present compensation measures and recurrence prevention plans in the future. Hong Eun-taek, co-CEO of Kakao and head of the emergency response committee for this incident, stated, "We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused by this accident and are making every effort to restore services. We take the concerns of the relevant authorities more seriously than ever and plan to prepare strong recurrence prevention measures as well as compensation policies for those affected by this incident."
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