Prospects of e-Korea

On July 22, the Republic of Korea Government announced that new rules are coming into effect for the country's web, drafted by the Korea Communications Commission. The ordinance is titled, "Comprehensive Measures for Information Protection on the Internet." These rules establish heavy penalties for website managers and owners for violations of rules regarding breach of libel, private data leaks, and non-anonymous user identity blogging. The measure also defines a new crime, called "cyber insult," that will give new powers for police to crack down on Internet users who post defamatory messages. The law gives broader protection under the real names website system.

The new law states that managers of Korean Internet websites, p2p (peer-to-peer) services, blogs and community bulletin boards will have to remove immediately any messages from their sites if a third party claims to have been defamed. And, if the websites do not comply with such a request, they can become instantly liable to legal sanction.

Internet freedom advocates are claiming the new rules amount to censorship of Internet content and that the measure will curb the freedom of expression and lessen use of the web for open communication. This is because the law will cause websites to voluntarily purge messages from boards and blogs deemed theoretically objectionable to avoid possible punishment. Obviously, such rules might create a Korean Internet regime of voluntary compliance in which owners and operators to could become habituated to quickly scrub any seemingly-libelous content before it becomes a legal problem. This differs from the U.S., where blog owners are not normally held responsible for user-generated content on their sites.

The measures will also expand the "real names system" to cover Internet portals that average more than 100,000 visitors daily. The rules strip away anonymity by causing Internet users to register with their real names in order to legally log-on to small and medium-sized Web sites to be able to post a message or reply. South Korea already has a "real names system" which is mandatory for Internet websites averaging more than 300,000 visitors per day, or websites owned by media companies that receive more than 200,000 visitors daily.

The KCC plan also includes an Internet data protection provision that minimizes company's rights to collect private person resident registration numbers. It will also ban other telecommunications and Internet Service Providers (ISP's) from collecting, storing and distributing resident registration numbers. Also, if private user information is released, such companies must then inform the subject that their data was leaked, and communicated by any means possible. The new law will be implemented at the end of 2008 after all other related laws are reformed to reflect the changes.

The Chief of KCC Internet network policy, Lim Cha-shik, claims the measures are "aimed at calming people's fears about an increase in the disadvantages associated with Internet use, such as personal information leaks and the spread of harmful information."

But the Government's moves have been harshly criticized by advocacy groups that point out that the new laws are some of the most stringent in the democratic world and cannot help but cause a drastic cutback in free speech on the Internet. The KCC's new measures will also increase the Government's ability to gather information it deems necessary, by allowing a State "right to access computer systems." This shall give the Government the legal ability to access personal and corporate computer systems in the event of an incident of "Internet intrusion." But computer safety groups claim this measure will mean that the Government will start collecting a pool of data from private citizens which, itself, then becomes a target for hackers.

Jang Yeo-gyeong, Policy Chief of South Korea's Jinbo Network Center, stated, "President Lee Myung-bak"s extreme distrust of information posted on the Internet is likely to become a policy of shackling the Internet and its users." He added that that if the KCC's measures are not stopped, "there will be a situation in which the government is forcing the administrators of Internet portals to delete online messages, or make them invisible, and punish Internet users."