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(News Focus) Mobile Internet on smartphones challenging real-name ID law
By Lee Youkyung
SEOUL, March 12 (Yonhap) -- South Korea's recent decision to exempt Youtube, the world's most-visited video portal, from the country's controversial real-name verification law has resparked a debate about the relevance of current Web regulation amid an increasingly mobile Internet environment, industry sources here said Friday.
The country's regulator said earlier this week that YouTube -- run by U.S. search engine giant Google Inc. -- which recently became available to local customers via many smartphones with a built-in YouTube application, is not compelled to abide by the domestic Internet law. The law, devised partly to stem defamation on the Web, requires users to input their full name and ID number before posting a comment or a video.
"It is difficult to apply the local law to restrict the U.S. YouTube site," Cho Hae-geun, an official from the Korea Communication Commission (KCC) said by phone.
The decision, which overturns the regulator's ruling a year ago, is touching off a debate about the effectiveness of Internet regulations that have changed little over recent years, while the Web market and the industry are changing rapidly with the emergence of new Web devices such as smartphones, a mobile handset with computer-like functions.
"IT companies have long been concerned about the real-name requirement for Web portals," said Kim Joong-tae, a consultant to IT companies and head of Seoul-based IT House, a private group collecting data and analysis on the local IT industry. "It makes it practically impossible for Korean companies to make services that attract users around the world."
A year ago, when most Web access was performed by desktop or laptop-like computing devices, the KCC, a government agency that regulates the country's telecommunications and Internet market, ordered that YouTube Korea identify its users who upload videos or post comments.
Google at the time dodged the restriction by simply stripping the South Korea-based accounts of video uploading rights.
At the time, those moves by the South Korean regulator and the U.S. search engine giant had little impact on Korean users, as they, including the presidential office Cheong Wa Dae, freely posted videos by opening accounts set outside the country.
But a growing number of South Korean citizens, unlike a year ago, are accessing the Web via smartphones, exposing loopholes in the country's unchanged regulations on the Web, experts said.
Motoroi from Motorola Inc., a Google's Android-based smartphone, for example, was launched in February with a disabled YouTube uploading function. Apple Inc.'s iPhone, on the other hand, was made available to local customers without restrictions on posting videos on YouTube.
Industry watchers said the resulted contradiction points to a larger problem where the current regulations on the Internet could be a roadblock in the country's efforts to foster the information technology industry.
"Requiring real-name verification on the Web means local IT companies should make Web services only for the Koreans," said the IT consultant Kim.
"Chinese, Americans, people from all over the world are joining global service like Twitter. But making a global service like Twitter or Facebook is virtually impossible if we require users to verify their real-name," he said.
Others, while acknowledging that the regulation may be effective in curbing cyber-bullies and attacks made anonymously, echoed such views that those Web regulation is doing a disservice to the country's IT industry.
"Stemming irresponsible voices may be well-intentioned, but the isolation of the local Internet environment is discouraging the industry," said another industry insider who declined to be named. Many fledgling IT companies here also had to spend money to set up real-name verification processes, an investment that could be allocated to better places, the source added.
ylee@yna.co.kr
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