[The Editors' Verdict]Spam: A Stronger Wave Is Coming

"Community guarantee 20 billion, coin deposits OK, the text message you just received was sent from overseas."

"[International Sender] Hello, it's been a while. I recently arrived in Korea on a business trip. Let's meet up. (Message in Chinese)"

Every week, I consistently receive two or three spam text messages with similar content. One is an investment-related advertisement with a suspicious link that looks dangerous to click. The other is a greeting in Chinese that makes me wonder if it was sent by a Chinese friend. I keep reporting and deleting these messages as spam as soon as they arrive, but I am helpless against the tactics of these scammers who send them from different numbers each time. With election season underway, repeated ARS poll calls are disrupting daily life just as much as telemarketing calls urging me to sign up for financial products. My email inbox is already flooded with dozens of advertising emails every day, making it unusable unless I regularly clean out the trash.

We live in an era overflowing with unnecessary information. Many people now experience inconvenience from unwanted information on devices they originally adopted for convenience. Fortunately, thanks to the government's strengthened crackdown, the number of spam messages received is on a downward trend. According to the Korea Internet & Security Agency (KISA), in the second half of last year, mobile phone and email users received an average of 11.60 illegal spam messages, and there were 159.52 million cases of spam reported or detected. Both the volume of spam received and the number of reports or detections decreased by about 29% compared to the first half of the year. This decline is attributed to the government's concerns about the damage caused by spam and phishing messages, which led to the establishment and implementation of the "Comprehensive Government Plan to Prevent Illegal Spam" in November last year, including strong measures to eradicate illegal spam. In addition, Samsung Electronics is contributing by expanding the number of devices equipped with artificial intelligence (AI) services that automatically filter out messages containing malicious links (URLs) related to illegal loans, adult content, or gambling.

However, it seems it will take more time for the government's efforts to bear fruit. The current focus is merely on controlling spam and phishing messages sent via mobile phones and email, but even more serious threats are waiting in the wings.

On May 15, Kakao launched its "Brand Message" product, allowing companies to freely send advertising messages via KakaoTalk, which is used by the majority of people in Korea. Previously, KakaoTalk users received advertising messages only from companies whose channels they had added, but now, if users have ever agreed to the "Corporate Marketing Terms of Service," they will receive advertising messages on KakaoTalk without any additional consent process. While telecommunications companies are obligated by the Telecommunications Business Act to manage illegal spam, platform operators like Kakao are not subject to such regulations, making a flood of unwanted advertising messages all but inevitable.

As Kakao's entry into the corporate advertising message market shows, companies that stake their survival on marketing will not overlook the gap between technological advancement and slow-moving regulations. Because the government's response focuses more on post-incident remedies than on prevention, it is the users who must endure the inconvenience caused by the flood of spam messages.

As the renowned scholar Yuval Harari wrote in his book "Sapiens," "Science is not a business conducted at a high moral or spiritual level. It is shaped by economic, political, and religious interests." It is time to reflect once again on the inconvenience people face when technology, developed for economic interests, is left without proper oversight and supervision.