Korea Communications Commission: Ad boycott campaign illegal.

In response to a suggestion that I organize a boycott of sponsors of the GIC---something I'm not interested in doing because, among other reasons, I'll look even more like a vindictive, whiny, self-important prick---I mentioned that the Korea Communications Commission announced on Monday that the online campaign to boycott companies who advertised in the country's largest conservative newspapers was illegal. From the Korea Times:

The ruling by the media policy-setting agency came after Internet users launched a campaign to boycott the Chosun Ilbo, JoongAng Ilbo and Dong-a Ilbo ― three papers critical of candlelit protests against U.S. beef imports ― and called for companies to stop placing ads in them.

They posted the names of companies and phone numbers on Daum portal as part of the boycott campaign.

``It's illegal to post comments to pressure companies not to advertise in newspapers,'' the KCC said.

The Joongang Ilbo has the story here, too. You can find more background information from the Korea Times in this June 23rd article. The Chosun Ilbo, of course, has been covering this issue going back to this June 18th article "Telephone Terror Targets Newspaper Advertisers." Today it ran an editorial critical of Daum---whose coverage of the recent demonstrations has been a huge boost for business---titled "Internet Portals Must Be More Accountable."

Meanwhile, the Korea Times reported that the three conservative papers will no longer provide content to Daum's aggregator. And Naver announced on July 1st as well that it will no longer edit news stories. An excerpt from the Dong-A Ilbo story:

NHN CEO Choi Hui-young said in a press conference held Tuesday at the Plaza Hotel in Seoul, “We will stop editing our news service shown at the center of our homepage. We decided to commission the editing right to individual media outlets and users.”

Thus, the section that showed “major news articles” selected by the Naver news team will disappear from the news box of Naver’s homepage.

Instead, the Web portal will allow individual users to select media outlets to be included in the news box and individual media outlets to edit their own news boxes.

For what it's worth, I like Naver's online dictionary better than Daum's.