Capturing Investigation on `Naver`... Services to Be Suspended

Large-scale Internet portal site `Naver` is likely to suspend the service for a time as the police started investigating it for the suspicion of careless supervision of something lustful.

Gangnam Police Station in Seoul secured the warrant for capturing investigation on Internet portal site `Naver` on the 31st for the suspicion that it had administrated bulletin board carelessly so that juveniles could register on or download lustful things through Internet bulletin board.

Hence, the police is likely to investigate the head office of Naver in Yeoksam-dong Gangnam-gu, Seoul, the database program in Internet Data Center of Korea Telecom in Mok-dong Yangcheon-gu, Seoul, where server computer of Naver lies, and soft wares managing server on April 1st that the service of the site will be stopped from the morning of the 1st.

In addition, the police will issue warrant for arrest of 3 persons including co-representative Mr. Lee (35) after it complete the capturing investigation.

An official of the police said, “Naver provided sensual cartoons at 200 won for a volume or 1,000 won per a day without verification of adult, though the Information Communication Ethics Committee (ICEC) pointed out the lasciviousness of the cartoons in October last year.”

Naver said, “we are monitoring the contents on the board and filtering out the sensual ones. And `self grading system` we operate is that when users mark `for adult` for the content on the board, a warning message is appear so that juveniles under 19 should not contact the content. ”

Min-Hyuk Park mhpark@donga.com