Google, the world’s largest Internet company, has finally submitted to South Korea‘s unprecedented Internet regulations, including agreeing to implement a “real name” system in which any South Korean can post their contents only after they confirm their resident registration number.
Here's an earlier overview I did of Google's problems in Korea. Given that both it and Youtube have such a small market share in Korea, and are prone to xenophobic backlash and, at least for school teachers, occassional censorship by school boards, I wish they would have just pulled out. It's not like either site would have been unavailable in Korea, it just wouldn't have been available in Korean-language. Pulling out would have proven a point---both here and internationally---and would have allowed them to retain some credibility, rather than simply caving into local pressure.
The article closes with:
Google Korea representatives have further indicated that they will create a way for foreigners living in South Korea to access YouTube using foreigner registration numbers. “Foreigners living in South Korea have a right to use YouTube too,” a representative said.
No shit, it's a foreign company, fuck face. If they knew they were going through with this censorship, ironing out the foreign ID situation should have been the first order of business, given that non-Koreans are far more likely to turn to YouTube than anywhere else.
* Update: Chris has done a longer, better post on this news. Perhaps the most significant thing I took away from his post is how, well, the news didn't make the news.
9 comments:
Brian,
I blogged about this rather depressing 1984-ish turn of events - and was surprised to hear so little, so soon before the change was scheduled to take place... Not that I've done much posting of Youtube videos in the first place... Since I can't exactly speak / read fluent Korean, I can only imagine how Koreans are taking the news...
Thanks for the comment and visit, Chris. I hadn't seen your post beforehand, otherwise I would have just linked to it.
I post a few youtube videos a month, and I'm not sure how this will really effect me. I do everything under my real name anyway, just not through the government like this. I'm much, much more disappointed in google than I am with whatever policies Korea has. Why wouldn't google just leave? It's not popular here among Koreans---I almost never get any Korean-language hits off Google.co.kr---and the "walled garden" of the Korean portals make it incapable of dominating the market like it does back home. I guess it's a "climb it cuz it's there" type of thing, but you think they would have known what they were getting themselves into. Then again, Wal-Mart didn't.
Pulling out would have proven a point---both here and internationally---and would have allowed them to retain some credibility, rather than simply caving into local pressure.
Google and credibility on the issue of censorship? You're kidding, right? What they do in China to go with the flow of local standards is considerably more egregious.
See here and here, with loads more here.
I'm surprised you don't get a lot of google.co.kr hits, Brian. You get more hits than I do in general, but around 5% of non-image searches are from google.co.kr. On some days it's 10% or more.
That might not seem a lot, but considering that the blog is all in English, it's not much of a surprise. I do note that a lot of the google.co.kr hits I get stem from me including (lately) the Han•gŭl spelling of various proper names. Some people even try to translate my posts into Korean.
What are you saying about Wal-Mart?
Well, didn't Wal-Mart get killed in Korea because it didn't try to conform itself to local preferences? You'd thin it would have known how hard it would have been to break in here.
Regarding from google.co.kr, I mean I don't get Korean-language hits off Google.co.kr. For posts of festivals or places I usually type the Korean name, too. I get a small percentage of hits every day from Naver searches in Korean, but almost no Korean Google hits. I get hits off google.co.kr with English browsers, which tells me foreigners are using it, but few with Korean browsers.
Well, didn't Wal-Mart get killed in Korea because it didn't try to conform itself to local preferences? You'd thin it would have known how hard it would have been to break in here.
For insight into this, ask why Wal-Mart failed but Costco is such a huge success.
Or why Carrefour did so much better than Wal-Mart (even though Carrefour decided to close up shop because they weren't #1 or #2 in Korea; a foolish move methinks). That Carrefour link includes some ideas of mine why Wal-Mart failed in Korea.
Echoing Kushibo's point, Google already kowtows to China, and while China is a much bigger market, Chinese internet users, like Korean internet users. overwhelmingly favor domestic portals.
If you google "Vidalia" you'll find a program that works with firefox that can work around this, should it ever be implemented.
It's useful nowadays for visiting those crazy NK websites South Korea decides to block.
If only they didn't block them and South Koreans could see how crazy the NK regime is...
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