Naver Also Experiences Outages, Calls for Platform Regulation Grow Louder

Error in Naver Map Search on the 16th
Only SPC Brands Appear When Searching 'Christmas'
News, Flight Booking, and Shopping Also Disrupted Within a Month
Government Moves to Strengthen Regulation of Platform Companies

When entering 'Christmas' or 'Christmas cake' on Naver Maps, an error occurred where only Baskin-Robbins and Paris Baguette stores, subsidiaries of SPC Group, were searched. This error has now been resolved. (Photo by Online Community Capture)

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] Naver's major services have recently experienced consecutive outages within the past month, increasing user dissatisfaction. This is expected to serve as another justification for the government to strengthen regulations on platforms.

Naver's Major Services Experience Consecutive Outages

According to the IT industry on the 19th, Naver's map service experienced search errors for eight hours from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on the 16th. When entering search terms like "Christmas" or "Christmas cake," only stores of SPC-affiliated brands Paris Baguette and Baskin Robbins appeared in the results.

As this outage occurred during the year-end peak season ahead of Christmas, small business owners expressed dissatisfaction. Jung Hwayoung (43), who runs a bakery in Dongdaemun-gu, Seoul, said, "I had set up to receive Christmas cake pre-orders through Naver Map, but I only found out about the search outage later through the news," adding, "I must have suffered sales losses, but there is no way to prove it or receive compensation, which is frustrating."

At the time, the Naver Map error caused SPC brand stores to appear even when the searcher was far away, pushing aside other nearby brand stores. Additionally, when searching for competitor brand names, only SPC brands were visible.

This is not the only service error by Naver. In the early hours of the 15th, a system error occurred on 'Naver Airfare,' a flight ticket brokerage platform provided through partnerships with travel agencies, where a 100,000 KRW discount intended for certain flights was mistakenly applied to other flights as well. As a result, bookings with incorrect discounts were unilaterally canceled, leading to user complaints.

On the afternoon of the 15th, a news service outage occurred for nearly two hours, during which article transmission was not functioning properly. Earlier, on the 6th of last month, errors occurred in services such as news article and comment displays, as well as in cafes, shopping, and maps.

Platforms Deeply Embedded in Daily Life... Calls for Regulation Growing?

Following the recent series of long and short Naver service outages, complaints about inconvenience have been nonstop online. This is evidence of the growing influence of platforms in our daily lives. Previously, when Kakao experienced a service blackout due to a fire at its Pangyo data center, the halt of daily life was also a significant case.

The problem is that even when service outages occur, it is difficult to hold anyone accountable. Most services are free, and alternative services exist. Among the 105,116 service blackout damage cases reported to Kakao, 13,198 cases (15.1%) involved free services, but receiving actual compensation is not easy.

Accordingly, the government is expected to strengthen regulations on platform companies. Recently, the ruling and opposition parties pushed for legislation known as the "Kakao Blackout Prevention Act," which passed the National Assembly plenary session without opposition on the 8th. This law collectively refers to amendments to the Framework Act on Telecommunications Development, the Telecommunications Business Act, and the Act on Promotion of Information and Communications Network Utilization and Information Protection, aiming to place data centers and large platform operators (value-added telecommunications service providers) under government oversight.

The passage of the bill has also accelerated the government's plan to establish a "Comprehensive Improvement Plan for Ensuring Digital Service Stability" in the first quarter of next year. As the root cause of outage incidents has been identified as the monopolistic structure of platforms, regulatory measures are being introduced. The Fair Trade Commission is preparing platform monopoly regulation review guidelines with the goal of enactment within the year and is speeding up revisions to merger review standards to block indiscriminate business expansion.