[2020 National Assembly Audit] Han Seong-sook, Naver CEO: "Different from Google... Disagreement with the Fair Trade Commission"

Hansung-sook, CEO of Naver, is appearing as a witness at the comprehensive government audit on the Office for Government Policy Coordination and others during the Political Affairs Committee meeting held at the National Assembly on the 22nd. Photo by Dongju Yoon doso7@

[Asia Economy Reporter Buaeri] Han Seong-suk, CEO of Naver, stated on the 22nd that she "has disagreements" regarding the Fair Trade Commission's imposition of a 26.7 billion KRW fine.

On the same day, during the National Assembly's Political Affairs Committee audit, when Yoon Jae-ok, a member of the People Power Party, asked, "Do you acknowledge the Fair Trade Commission's announcement that Naver manipulated algorithms to favor its own shopping mall?" she responded accordingly.

CEO Han said, "We will provide explanations on necessary parts," adding, "We are internally reviewing legal responses."

Earlier, the Fair Trade Commission imposed a fine of 26.7 billion KRW on Naver, stating that it manipulated shopping and video search results to increase the market share of its own services, causing damage to competitors and consumers.

She further explained, "At that time, only products centered on open markets were appearing, so exposure of small and medium-sized merchants' malls was not possible," and added, "We gave a lot of thought to how to display a variety of products and reviewed that part."

Regarding Google's 2.4 billion euro fine imposed by the European Union (EU) in 2017 for displaying its own shopping service search results at the top, CEO Han drew a clear distinction, saying, "Google and Naver are different."

Meanwhile, during the audit, questions continued regarding Naver's manipulation of news and shopping search algorithms.

When Oh Ki-hyung, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, pointed out, "Is there no internal control mechanism within the company to prevent adjusting search results to favor certain business divisions over others?" CEO Han explained, "It's somewhat different from that. The reason we look at data is to see how the search data we have secured affects quality."

When Assemblyman Yoon asked, "Is there any human involvement in Naver's news algorithm?" CEO Han replied, "There is a part of the algorithm created by developers, but aside from that, there is no human involvement."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.