By Kim Tong-hyung
Staff Reporter
The Lee Myung-bak government has been considering Web monitoring after being attacked by bloggers angered over the resumption of U.S. beef imports. However, Internet portals are now regrouping to fight back.
Meeting with reporters over lunch Thursday, NHN chief executive Choi Hwi-young revealed that his company will lead a coalition of six of the country's largest Internet portals to counter the government's plan to tighten control of online information.
NHN, the operator of the country's most popular search engine Naver and online game portal Hangame, is also considering filing a lawsuit against Grand National Party (GNP) lawmaker Jin Seong-ho. Jin commented at a GNP meeting last October that he had successfully ``suppressed'' Naver over its coverage of the presidential election last year when he was working for Lee's camp.
NHN has since been accused by Internet users of filtering anti-government criticism from its sites and the suspicions were fueled after Naver was found to have placed ``afreeca'' on its list of banned search words. Afreeca.com is an Internet site that became popular for its real-time broadcasts of candlelit vigils by demonstrators protesting the resumption of U.S. beef imports.
``The biggest loss for us in the arguments over U.S. beef imports was the compromised integrity of Naver,'' said Choi.
``We sent a letter to Jin last month and asked him to explain what he meant by `suppression.' We haven't heard from him yet, and if they fail to give us a sincere reply, we could consider legal action to clear our name,'' he said.
NHN had seemed to step back from the political debate, announcing earlier this month its intention to revamp its news section on its main page, which had employees pick and place news stories according to their own editorial judgment. The new main page, expected to debut later this year, will instead provide direct links to the Web sites of news outlets writing the stories.
NHN's stance differs from that of Daum, which had been enjoying increased traffic on its online discussion forum, Agora, emerging as a rallying point for anti-government bloggers.
As the No. 1 portal, NHN has been more deliberate about its relationship with traditional media outlets, while Daum, stuck behind in second place, merely enjoyed the increased attention.
However, with the government strengthening its intentions to monitor Internet information, NHN now seems to be gearing up for the battle.
Kim Young-sun, a lawmaker from the ruling GNP, proposed a draft bill stating that an Internet site using news stories for more than 50 percent of its content on its main page should be regulated as media under the media law.
The proposal also includes a provision that prevents Internet portals from publishing news stories and providing news search services when they fail to dedicate at least half of their main page content to journalism.
To put it simply, Kim is saying that any Internet site providing anything more than a weather update should be categorized as media outlets and be held accountable as such.
The GNP finds its biggest backers in conservative newspapers, especially the ``Big Three" ― the Chosun Ilbo, JoongAng Ilbo and Dong-A Ilbo ― who have been wary about the increasing role of Internet portals in news circulation and pushed themselves to the forefront in the subscription wars.