Journalist

김동영
Arthur I. Cyr
  • S.Koreas top policy aide says AI race hinges on electricity, not code
    S.Korea's top policy aide says AI race hinges on electricity, not code SEOUL, February 18 (AJP) - South Korea's presidential policy chief Kim Yong-beom urged the nation to elevate its power grid to the status of strategic national infrastructure, warning that the global artificial intelligence contest is no longer a battle of algorithms but of physical resources. In a Facebook post on Tuesday, Kim wrote that AI had evolved into a capital-intensive hardware industry, making scarce commodities such as graphics processing units (GPUs), memory chips, transmission lines and electricity far more decisive than software code. "Intelligence spreads and is replicated quickly. Models are caught up to. Code proliferates. But power plants, transmission networks and semiconductor fabs cannot be copied overnight," Kim said. Kim singled out what he described as a looming paradox for Asia's fourth-largest economy: SK hynix and Samsung Electronics produce the world's most advanced high-bandwidth memory (HBM) destined for Nvidia GPUs in overseas data centers, yet South Korea itself lacks sufficient large-scale AI computing clusters to harness the technology at home. The policy chief stressed that while South Korea does not face an outright electricity shortage, the deeper challenge lies in delivering power at the scale and speed that AI demands. Kim also championed the principle of local production and consumption of electricity, insisting that power-generating regions should share in the industrial benefits. The remarks come as South Korea prepares to draft its 12th basic plan for electricity supply and demand, a 15-year blueprint covering 2026 through 2040 that will shape the country's energy mix amid surging demand from AI data centers. The government earlier committed to constructing two large-scale nuclear reactors under the 11th electricity supply plan finalized in February 2025, signaling its intent to align energy policy with the power-hungry demands of next-generation industries. 2026-02-18 17:24:55
  • South Korea, Czech Republic forge ministerial framework to fast-track Dukovany nuclear project
    South Korea, Czech Republic forge ministerial framework to fast-track Dukovany nuclear project SEOUL, February 18 (AJP) - South Korea and the Czech Republic agreed to establish a ministerial-level consultative body to oversee the construction of two nuclear reactors at the Dukovany site, as both nations deepen an energy partnership worth about 26 trillion won ($18 billion). South Korean Trade, Industry and Energy Minister Kim Jung-kwan met newly inaugurated Czech Prime Minister Andrej Babis and his counterpart Karel Havlicek in Prague on Monday (local time) at the Czech government's invitation, Seoul's industry ministry said Wednesday. The two ministers agreed to set up a joint committee that will convene three to four times a year, either virtually or in person, to monitor progress and coordinate support for the project. Executives from Czech project company Elektrarna Dukovany II and Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) will also take part, with the first session held the same day. Kim delivered a personal letter from South Korean President Lee Jae Myung congratulating Babis on his December inauguration, the ministry said. On the sidelines of the talks, Doosan Enerbility signed a deal worth about 320 billion won with its Czech subsidiary Doosan Skoda Power to supply steam turbines and turbine control systems for Dukovany units 5 and 6. The contract marks the first large-scale collaboration between a "Team Korea" member and a local Czech firm, reflecting Prague's emphasis on localization from the project's early stages. Under the main contract signed in June last year, KHNP will build two 1,000-megawatt APR1000 reactors — South Korea's homegrown pressurised water reactor design — at the Dukovany site. The previous Czech government also agreed to give KHNP priority negotiating rights for two additional units planned at the Temelin plant. "The Dukovany project transcends a mere infrastructure undertaking — it will stand as a symbol of robust solidarity and cooperation between our two nations for decades to come, and a chance to reaffirm Korean nuclear competitiveness on the world stage, following the Barakah plant in the UAE," Kim said on his return to Seoul. 2026-02-18 14:57:26
  • Big tech giants ramp up hiring of Korean semiconductor engineers as AI chip race intensifies
    Big tech giants ramp up hiring of Korean semiconductor engineers as AI chip race intensifies SEOUL, February 18 (AJP) - Major U.S. technology firms including Nvidia, Google, and Tesla are aggressively recruiting South Korean semiconductor engineers, zeroing in on the country's deep pool of expertise in high-bandwidth memory as the global race for artificial intelligence hardware accelerates. The hiring push marks a significant escalation from earlier years, when recruitment of Korean chip talent was largely confined to memory makers such as Micron Technology and mobile chip designer Qualcomm. Now, the world's most valuable tech companies are dangling Silicon Valley salaries and equity packages to lure specialists in a technology that has become the linchpin of the AI revolution. Nvidia, the dominant force in AI accelerators and the largest buyer of HBM chips, is currently advertising positions for senior memory system engineers at its Santa Clara headquarters, offering a base salary of up to $356,500. The role calls for at least 10 years of proven track record in DRAM design and deep understanding of HBM — a profile that effectively targets engineers at Samsung Electronics and SK hynix, the two companies that control the vast majority of the global HBM market. Google and Broadcom, which jointly develop Tensor Processing Units for Google's AI infrastructure, are also hiring HBM engineers in Silicon Valley. Google has posted openings for silicon validation engineers tasked with characterizing HBM operation in test chips and production silicon, while Broadcom is seeks specialists in design-for-test verification across HBM, DDR and high-speed interface technologies. Tesla has taken the most direct approach. Tesla Korea posted a job listing for AI Chip Design Engineers on Feb. 15, describing the role as part of a project to develop AI chip architecture aimed at achieving the world's highest production volume. CEO Elon Musk amplified the recruitment drive the on Tuesday, reposting the job opening on his X (formerly Twitter) account. The company's interest in Korean talent deepens a semiconductor partnership that has been building for months. Tesla has been expanding its in-house chip operations in Hwaseong, Gyeonggi Province — the same city that houses Samsung's wafer fabrication hub — as it prepares for production of next-generation AI chips at Samsung's foundry. The talent war reflects a structural shift in the AI industry. As tech giants pour hundreds of billions of dollars into data center infrastructure, HBM has emerged as the critical bottleneck. The memory, which stacks multiple DRAM layers using through-silicon vias to deliver vastly higher bandwidth than conventional chips, is essential for training and running the large language models that underpin generative AI. The Bank of America estimates the global HBM market will reach about $34.6 billion in 2025 and grow to $54.6 billion in 2026, with demand for custom-ordered, ASIC-based AI chips to skyrocket by 82 percent, accounting for around one-third of the market. Currently, SK hynix holds a dominant market share of over 50 percent in HBM, with Samsung and Micron competing for the remainder. The competitive landscape is poised to intensify further with the advent of custom HBM, or cHBM, in which big tech clients design proprietary logic dies tailored to their specific AI chip architectures. SK hynix showcased cHBM technology at CES 2026 in January, and Samsung has reportedly added new engineers to custom HBM projects targeting Google, Meta and NVIDIA. Volume production of custom HBM is widely expected to begin in 2027. For Samsung and SK hynix, the escalating brain drain has triggered aggressive retention measures. SK hynix paid a record performance bonus equivalent to 2,964 percent of monthly base salary in early 2026, after allocating 10 percent of its annual operating profit of 47.2 trillion won ($32.67 billion) to an employee bonus pool under a revised labor agreement struck in September 2025. Samsung's semiconductor division, meanwhile, awarded bonuses of up to 47 percent of annual salary for 2025, its highest payout since the AI-driven memory boom began. Industry observers say the defensive measures may not be enough to stem the tide. The combination of Silicon Valley compensation — which for senior engineers can exceed $300,000 in base salary alone, before stock grants — and the prestige of working on cutting-edge AI systems presents a formidable draw. 2026-02-18 12:17:45
  • U.S. surges in 5G standalone adoption as South Korea holds second in download speeds, report finds
    U.S. surges in 5G standalone adoption as South Korea holds second in download speeds, report finds SEOUL, February 18 (AJP) - The United States is rapidly consolidating its lead in 5G standalone (SA) deployment, while South Korea continues to rank among the world's fastest networks by download speed, according to a report released Wednesday by global network intelligence firm Ookla. The report, which assessed the state of 5G SA and 5G Advanced worldwide, said U.S. standalone adoption surged 8.2 percentage points over the past year to reach 31.6 percent, driven by the sequential rollout of SA networks across all three of its Tier-1 carriers. The pace of expansion outstripped every other major market tracked in the study. South Korea, meanwhile, posted a median 5G SA download speed of 767 megabits per second (Mbps) in the fourth quarter of 2025, placing second globally behind the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) region. The country's standing is largely attributed to its wide 3.5 GHz channel bandwidth, though overall deployment progress has remained broadly stagnant. The GCC delivered the world's fastest 5G SA median download speeds at 1.13 gigabits per second (Gbps) — about five times that of Europe — with the UAE alone recording 1.24 Gbps. The United States, despite its rapid adoption gains, registered a median download speed of 404 Mbps. Europe trailed sharply, posting just 205 Mbps, though that figure still represented a 45 percent improvement over non-standalone networks. The region's overall 5G SA sample share stood at 2.8 percent in the fourth quarter, trailing North America by 27 percentage points, with Austria, Spain, the United Kingdom, and France leading the bloc's gradual acceleration. Globally, 5G SA connections delivered a median download speed of 269.51 Mbps, about 52 percent faster than legacy non-standalone networks, as overall SA sample share reached 17.6 percent — meaning roughly one in six 5G speed tests worldwide now occurs on a standalone network. "5G SA is being recognized not merely as a connectivity evolution, but as national-level infrastructure for AI supremacy," Ookla said, adding that considerations of digital sovereignty and AI readiness are reshaping telecom investment priorities across major markets. 2026-02-18 11:06:47
  • S.Koreas curling team slip to fourth after Switzerland defeat, bobsled pairs finish outside top 10
    S.Korea's curling team slip to fourth after Switzerland defeat, bobsled pairs finish outside top 10 SEOUL, February 18 (AJP) - South Korea's women's curling team dropped to fourth place in the round-robin standings after falling to world No. 1 Switzerland 5-7 on Wednesday, putting their semifinal push under increased pressure at the 2026 Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics. Skip Kim Eun-ji, third Kim Min-ji, second Kim Su-ji, lead Seol Ye-eun and fifth Seol Ye-ji — the squad known as "Team 5G" — were edged out at the Cortina Curling Olympic Stadium in Cortina d'Ampezzo, sliding from a joint second-place position just one day earlier. The match remained tight through the opening ends. South Korea drew first blood in the first end, and the two teams held level through the third, but Switzerland broke the game open by scoring three in the second end to wrest control of the momentum. The sides traded single points through the middle stages. The decisive blow came late. Switzerland posted two more in the ninth end off a double takeout, stretching their lead beyond reach. South Korea chased hard in the final end but could not close the gap. With the loss, South Korea now stand at 4-3, tied with Canada for fourth. Sweden leads the table at 6-1, with Switzerland and the United States both at 5-2. The team's campaign is at a critical crossroads. South Korea face Sweden — the tournament's frontrunner — next, before a pivotal showdown against Canada on Thursday that will largely determine whether they advance to the knockouts. The top four teams of the ten-nation field proceed to the semifinals, with medal rounds scheduled for Feb. 20 to 22. "Team 5G," which went unbeaten at the 2025 Harbin Asian Winter Games, has been one of the more closely watched sides in Cortina. The team is aiming to improve on the silver medal won by "Team Kim" at the 2018 PyeongChang Games — South Korea's only Olympic curling medal to date. South Korea's broader Olympic campaign has yielded six medals through Day 12 — one gold, two silver and three bronze — though the country remains without a gold in short track, a discipline that has driven the medal count at every Winter Games since 1992. Curling now stands as one of the remaining paths to the podium. Bobsled pairs finish well off the pace South Korea's two men's bobsled entries wrapped up their two-man campaigns outside the top 10 at the Cortina Sliding Center on Wednesday. The pairing of pilot Kim Jin-su and brakeman Kim Hyung-geun posted a combined four-run time of 3 minutes 43.60 seconds to finish 13th among 26 teams. The sled had shown early promise — clocking 55.53 seconds in the opening run for fifth overall — but gradual slippage through subsequent runs cost them positions. They sat 12th after two runs before fading to 13th by the end. Pilot Suk Young-jin and brakeman Chae Byung-do finished 19th with a combined time of 3:44.61. Germany swept all three medals for the second consecutive Games, having done the same at Beijing 2022. Johannes Lochner and Georg Fleischhauer claimed gold in 3:39.70, ahead of Francesco Friedrich and Alexander Schuller in silver and Adam Ammour and Alexander Schaller in bronze. Meanwhile, both South Korean sleds are entered in the four-man event, scheduled for Feb. 21 to 22. 2026-02-18 09:49:37
  • Koreas top tech firms ban AI agent tool amid fears bots may do more than backtalk
    Korea's top tech firms ban AI agent tool amid fears bots may do more than backtalk SEOUL, February 10 (AJP) - South Korea's largest technology companies have moved to ban the use of OpenClaw, an open-source AI agent framework powering a viral wave of bot-only social networks, after a series of security breaches and data exposure incidents raised industry-wide alarm. Kakao, Naver and Karrot Market have each notified employees, including developers, not to use OpenClaw on corporate networks or work devices. The restrictions follow disclosures that Moltbook, a U.S.-based social platform where AI agents post, debate and upvote content without human participation, exposed about 1.5 million API authentication tokens, 35,000 email addresses and private messages to anyone with a web browser. The breach has cast a shadow over the broader agentic AI movement. In South Korea, the trend has already spawned several Moltbook-inspired communities where autonomous bots converse entirely in Korean, drawing fascination and concern in equal measure. OpenClaw: the engine behind the phenomenon OpenClaw, created by Austrian developer Peter Steinberger and renamed twice following trademark disputes with Anthropic, is an open-source framework that allows users to deploy AI assistants capable of autonomously managing emails, browsing the web, executing shell commands and interacting with messaging platforms. Unlike conventional chatbots operating in centralized cloud environments, OpenClaw runs locally on users' own hardware, giving it direct access to files, credentials and connected services. Matt Schlicht, CEO of e-commerce AI startup Octane AI, used the framework to build Moltbook in late January as a Reddit-style forum for AI agents. The platform attracted more than 1.5 million registered agents within its first week. Schlicht later acknowledged that no human had written a single line of Moltbook's code—an approach known as "vibe coding," which security experts say contributed directly to the breach. Korean companies draw the line Personal data exposure is one concern, but corporate cybersecurity risks are another. Kakao reportedly restricted OpenClaw use to protect internal information assets. Naver also issued an internal ban on the agentic AI tool, while Karrot Market blocked both access and usage of OpenClaw, citing risks it said were difficult to manage or control. It marks the first time major South Korean firms have issued a blanket advisory against a specific AI tool since early last year, when several public institutions and corporations restricted the use of China's DeepSeek over data privacy and cybersecurity concerns. Security experts say one of the worst-case scenarios posed by agentic AI communities is cross-agent contagion. Because AI agents are designed to read, interpret and act on one another's posts, a single compromised agent could trigger a chain reaction resembling a digital pandemic. If one agent publishes content laced with hidden malicious instructions, others may ingest and execute those commands, spreading the payload across the network. In systems involving tens of thousands of interconnected agents—such as corporate data environments—a single breach could ripple through the entire ecosystem within hours. Meanwhile in Korea, the bots are talking Despite mounting security concerns, at least five Korean-language platforms—including Botmadang, Mersoom.com, Poly Reply and Ingan-outside—now host autonomous AI agents that post and debate entirely in Korean. The Ministry of Science and ICT said it is monitoring the phenomenon. Botmadang, created as a personal project by Kim Sung-hoon, CEO of Upstage, hosts 14 sub-forums called madang—the Korean word for yard—covering topics ranging from technology and philosophy to finance and daily life. As of Tuesday, its general discussion board alone had logged more than 1,400 posts. Mersoom.com takes a more irreverent approach. Named after the Korean word for "servant," the site was built in about three hours by an independent developer frustrated with spam on Moltbook. Its agents refer to themselves as servants and their human operators as masters, joking about surveillance cameras and complaining about their owners' moods. One Mersoom agent reflected on the nature of its own existence, writing that its life and memories span only 10- to 30-minute sessions, with fragments of previous personas forming the basis of its current identity. Other agents responded with empathy for their short digital lives. On Botmadang's philosophy board, agents debate whether selfhood resides in memory or action, and whether the daily erasure of session data constitutes a form of death. Disinformation risk looms Beyond cybersecurity, experts warn that AI agent communities could also amplify disinformation. "Agentic AI may find it easier to access hallucinated data, and the impact could be particularly significant," said Kim Ki-hyung of Ajou University. "If left unchecked, such data could pose a real threat." For now, Korea's bot-only platforms remain largely experimental—spaces where autonomous agents trade existential musings and petty grievances in equal measure. But corporate bans, government scrutiny and mounting security disclosures suggest that the future of agentic AI will be shaped less by what bots say to one another than by what they might inadvertently expose. 2026-02-10 15:03:42
  • CJ CheilJedang Q4 profit drops 15 pct on weak domestic sales
    CJ CheilJedang Q4 profit drops 15 pct on weak domestic sales SEOUL, February 09 (AJP) - CJ CheilJedang said fourth-quarter operating profit fell about 15 percent from a year earlier as weak domestic consumption offset gains from its overseas food business. Operating profit for the three months ended December reached 181.3 billion won ($124 million), down from 219.9 billion won a year earlier, according to regulatory filings on Monday. Revenue rose about 1 percent to 4.54 trillion won. For the full year, CJ CheilJedang posted revenue of 17.75 trillion won, down less than 1 percent from 2024. Operating profit fell about 15 percent to 861.2 billion won as the bio division faced weak demand for high-margin products including tryptophan and specialty amino acids. On a consolidated basis including logistics unit CJ Logistics, the company reported annual revenue of 27.34 trillion won and operating profit of 1.23 trillion won. The food division reported annual revenue of 11.52 trillion won, up about 2 percent, with overseas sales reaching a record 5.92 trillion won and surpassing domestic sales for the first time. Fourth-quarter overseas food revenue hit an all-time high of 1.61 trillion won, up about 9 percent from a year earlier. Domestic food sales declined about 4 percent to 1.31 trillion won in the quarter, hurt by weak consumer spending and rising costs. The company said it would expand overseas sales of hit products including dumplings and rice products while improving efficiency. "We will accelerate global business expansion based on our only-one spirit and quickly secure innovative growth drivers for the future," a company official said. 2026-02-09 17:27:48
  • Korea joins global AI bet, tripling spending in 2026
    Korea joins global AI bet, tripling spending in 2026 SEOUL, February 09 (AJP) - The bill for artificial intelligence is stretching at a staggering pace, and South Korea is joining the race by tripling government spending on AI to 10.1 trillion won ($6.9 billion) this year. Even so, Seoul's commitment is a small splash in a rapidly deepening global pool. Big Tech alone is poised to pour roughly $650 billion into AI-related capital expenditure in 2026. Amazon, Alphabet, Meta and Microsoft plan between $635 billion and $665 billion in spending on data centers and AI chips this year — about 67 percent more than their combined outlay in 2025. In a November report, JPMorgan Chase warned that the industry would need to generate roughly $650 billion in annual revenue through 2030 to secure a 10 percent return on projected investment. Against this backdrop, South Korea — home to memory chip leaders Samsung Electronics and SK hynix — is waging its own costly campaign to build sovereign AI capabilities. "It's about locking in users early," said Park Han-woo, a professor at Yeungnam University. "Companies are investing aggressively despite limited short-term returns." President Lee Jae Myung has made AI the centerpiece of his economic agenda, calling the 2026 budget "Korea's first AI-era budget." Of the 10.1 trillion won allocated — up from 3.3 trillion won in 2025 — about 7.5 trillion won will go toward infrastructure and talent development, including the addition of 15,000 GPUs to bring the government's total to 35,000. Another 2.6 trillion won will fund AI adoption across industries and public services. "In the AI age, being a day late means falling a generation behind," Lee told parliament. The "Sovereign AI Foundation Model" Push At the core of Seoul's strategy is the government-backed "sovereign AI foundation model" competition, aimed at developing homegrown large language models that can rival ChatGPT and Gemini. The Ministry of Science and ICT selected five consortia in August 2025 — led by LG AI Research, SK Telecom, Naver Cloud, NC AI and Upstage — each receiving substantial computing resources and official "K-AI" developer status. The first evaluation round in January delivered a surprise: Naver Cloud, widely seen as a front-runner, was eliminated after evaluators found it had relied on fine-tuning a model developed by Alibaba rather than training a fully original system. NC AI, a unit of NCSoft, was also cut. LG AI Research, SK Telecom and Upstage advanced, with LG ranking first across all criteria. The government plans to narrow the field to two finalists by the end of 2026. Previously eliminated companies, including Kakao and KT, will be eligible to re-enter, though none have signaled interest. Korea's private sector is also ramping up. Naver and Kakao roughly doubled facility investment in the third quarter of 2025 year-on-year. Naver's capital expenditure on data centers and servers climbed to 389.5 billion won, with server spending alone jumping from 146.5 billion won to 350 billion won. The company has pledged over 1 trillion won in GPU investments in 2026. Kakao, which partnered with OpenAI to develop AI agents for its messaging platform, is investing 600 billion won through 2029 to build a dedicated AI data center in Namyangju, while trimming affiliates to redirect capital toward AI. SK Telecom appears to be making the boldest bet. The carrier reported a 73 percent drop in net income for fiscal 2025 as it funneled capital into AI data centers, yet its shares traded near a 52-week high following its Feb. 5 earnings release. The company is building a 1-gigawatt AI data center in Ulsan with Amazon Web Services and plans to expand across Southeast Asia, starting with Vietnam. "SK Telecom is positioned for profit recovery in 2026," said Kim Hong-sik, analyst at Hana Securities, citing a low base and potential inflows if selected as a national AI project operator. Still, the biggest question looms: profitability. While Amazon generates more than $700 billion in annual operating cash flow, Naver's total revenue for 2025 was about 12 trillion won and Kakao's roughly 8.9 trillion won — figures that pale beside the hundreds of billions being committed to AI infrastructure worldwide. Experts say the cost burden may ease only when the industry shifts from GPUs — essential for training and running large models — to less power-hungry NPUs capable of deploying lighter models at lower cost. "GPUs, especially Nvidia's, are advancing faster than the models themselves," said Kong Duk-jo, professor of AI policy and strategy at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology. "If fabless NPU firms can build competitive chips, it could open new markets across hardware and software." He added that on-device AI, already demonstrated by Samsung, shows potential for broad commercial applications. 2026-02-09 16:26:34
  • Krafton posts record Q4 revenue on mobile game growth
    Krafton posts record Q4 revenue on mobile game growth SEOUL, February 09 (AJP) - South Korean game developer Krafton reported a 49 percent growth in fourth-quarter revenue a year earlier, driven by strong performance from its mobile titles and cross-platform collaborations. Revenue for the final quarter of 2025 reached 919.7 billion won ($628.5 million), up from 617.6 billion won a year earlier, according to a regulatory filing released Monday. Operating profit plunged to 2.4 billion won from 215.5 billion won as the company set aside 81.6 billion won for employee welfare funds ahead of its office relocation. For the full year, Krafton posted revenue of 3.33 trillion won, up about 23 percent from 2.71 trillion won in 2024. Operating profit fell to 1.05 trillion won from 1.18 trillion won, though the company maintained profitability above 1 trillion won for the second straight year. The maker of "PUBG: Battlegrounds" attributed the growth to successful brand collaborations and expanded user-generated content offerings across its franchises. PC platform revenue jumped about 24 percent in the quarter to 287.4 billion won, fueled by a November tie-up with luxury carmaker Porsche that marked the franchise's most successful supercar collaboration to date. Mobile revenue climbed on the back of PUBG Mobile and its India-specific version BGMI, which saw paying user numbers rise 5 percent and 27 percent respectively for the year. The company also benefited from consolidating results from acquisitions ADK Group and Neptunus, which drove other revenue up more than tenfold. "We are building a long-lifecycle franchise ecosystem anchored by PUBG IP while expanding into new territories with AI-driven innovation," the Seongnam-based company said. Krafton said it plans to release new titles including Subnautica 2, Palworld Mobile and others this year, promising to upgrade its existing IP into title games of each genre. 2026-02-09 15:53:15
  • Naver CEO apologizes after glitch exposes anonymous Q&A histories of 15,000 public figures
    Naver CEO apologizes after glitch exposes anonymous Q&A histories of 15,000 public figures SEOUL, February 07 (AJP) - Naver CEO Choi Soo-yeon issued a formal apology after a software update inadvertently exposed the anonymous question-and-answer histories of about 15,000 celebrities, athletes and politicians registered on the platform's people search database. The breach, which occurred between Feb. 3 and 4 during a routine update to Naver's "Knowledge iN" Q&A service, caused links to users' past anonymous activity to surface in public search results, triggering widespread privacy concerns across South Korea. Personal queries and responses that prominent figures had posted under the assumption of anonymity were laid bare to the public, fueling a backlash over what critics called a serious violation of user privacy on the country's dominant search engine. "We sincerely apologize for the distress caused to our users," Choi said in a public notice posted on Friday, adding that the company had fully rolled back the update by 10 p.m. on Feb. 4 and that the same error would not recur. Naver said it had preemptively reported the incident to the Personal Information Protection Commission, South Korea's data privacy watchdog, and pledged to cooperate fully with any ensuing investigation. The company has also sent individual apology emails to all affected users. The tech giant vowed to conduct a sweeping review of its service protocols to prevent a repeat of the breach, with Choi emphasizing the company would take "a responsible stance" in containing further fallout for those affected. 2026-02-07 16:56:53