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NHN concerned about fair competition in mobile search market
By Lee Youkyung
SEOUL, March 15 (Yonhap) -- The head of NHN Corp., operator of South Korea's most-visited search engine, expressed on Monday concerns about fair competition, arguing that users should be given a choice for a variety of search engines in smartphones, an increasingly popular gateway to the Web.
Kim Sang-hun, chief executive officer of NHN, said his company may suffer a "disadvantage" compared to smartphone operating system makers like Google Inc., which could offer its Google search engine by default in its Android phones.
"Android phones have Google's search engine set as the default (search engine). And for Web searches, Google windows pop up automatically," Kim said in a press meeting. "Such a move worries us."
NHN, which operates gaming and Web portal Naver, leads Google in the domestic search engine market. But market watchers voiced concerns about its competitiveness as more people access the Web through mobile handsets.
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