Incorrect names of East Sea used at Korean websites

The Ministry of Oceans and Fisheries had a hard time as the news came out that the websites of eight organizations under the ministry were using the Sea of Japan on maps on their websites, instead of the East Sea, as of September. The reason that such misrepresentations were made was because they used the international version of Google Map, a desktop web mapping service developed by U.S. tech giant Google. In the international version of this mapping service, the Sea of Japan takes priority over the East Sea. The Korean organization under the ministry did not aware of the fact.

The ministry ordered them to correct the mistakes after the revelation of the National Assembly. However, it turns out that some schools, organizations, and companies are still using this incorrect name of the East Sea. According to the report, government organizations, universities, and civil unions including the National research Facilities & Equipment Center, Seoul National University Human Rights Center, Yonsei Foreign Language Institute, Korea Democracy Foundation, Green Korea United as well as Shinsegae Paju Premium Outlets and other large corporates, accommodations for foreigners, and restaurant franchises were using the Sea of Japan on their websites as of Monday.

Such mistakes were made as they failed to understand the operating guidelines of the Google Map. As for the names that are related to controversial territorial disputes, Google follows the company policy in order to maintain a neutral stance. For instance, the Sea of Japan and Liancourt Rocks are used in the international version of google map (map.google.com), rather than the East Sea and Dokdo, respectively. But this can be fixed by simply changing the settings. When you enter the address of map.google.com, this service automatically converts its version into the one of connecting country according to the location. If the address of map.google.com is applied to the inside of a separate homepage, users are directly linked to the international version of the service regardless of the location of access. To fix this, you need to designate a country code or change the address as map.google.co.kr to see that the location is marked as the East Sea, instead of the Sea of Japan.

In fact, the Korea Health Industry Development Institute under the Ministry of Health and Welfare, DASAN Networks and other organizations and companies changed their homepage settings to apply the Korean address of the service in advance so that users can see the East Sea in the map service from their websites. The Marine Territory Division of the ministry said, “Building a website is mostly put out to outside companies. We failed to check the error after the homepage was complete. The ministry found the problem and took measures deemed necessary. But things had already happened. This should never happen.”

Using the Google Map service with misrepresentation of the East Sea in Korea has been pointed out for more than 10 years. “Such problem was pointed out for years, but nothing has done because of public indifference. We need to encourage such organizations and companies to correct the misrepresentations, rather than denouncing them for their mistakes," said Seo Kyung-duk, a liberal arts professor at Sunshin Women’s University. "We should also make efforts to change the title of the Sea of Japan into the East Sea in the international version of Google Map.”

Hyung-Seok Seo skytree08@donga.com