YouTube Goes Down Again After One Month... Ministry of Science and ICT "Reviewing Measures"

Google and YouTube Service Outage for 45 Minutes... Official Apology
Ministry of Science and ICT Requests Data Submission from Google... First Application of Netflix Law

[Asia Economy Reporter Buaeri] Google and YouTube simultaneously experienced service outages. This occurred just over a month after the approximately two-hour YouTube blackout last month. As online services have become a part of everyday life in the era of non-face-to-face interactions, many users faced inconvenience when the services stopped, but it seems unlikely that user compensation will be provided this time as well.

YouTube Blackout Again... Google Officially Apologizes

According to Google Korea on the 15th, services provided by Google such as Google, YouTube, Google Play, and Gmail experienced service disruptions around 9 PM the previous day but have since been restored. Google stated, "From 8:47 PM Korean time, an authentication system failure occurred due to an internal Google storage quota issue. The issue was resolved at 9:32 PM, and all services have been restored." They added, "We apologize to all users who experienced inconvenience."

During this period, accessing YouTube displayed a "Loading Error" message, making usage difficult. On social networking services (SNS), posts flooded reporting errors not only on YouTube but also on 18 services including Google Docs, Maps, and Google Meet. Industry analysts say it is very unusual for a failure to occur across Google's entire range of services rather than individual ones.

Unlike the YouTube blackout a month ago, this time multiple work-related services such as mail and cloud simultaneously experienced outages, suggesting greater user impact. Voices demanding compensation have emerged, especially from users subscribed to paid plans like YouTube Premium and music services. According to IGAWorks' "Mobile Index," YouTube's domestic monthly active users (MAU) reached 43.19 million as of September.

First Application of Netflix Law... Government "Reviewing Necessary Measures"

However, Google remains silent regarding compensation. There was no significant compensation for the YouTube outage on the 12th of last month either. Under current law, compensation is difficult. According to the Telecommunications Business Act, value-added telecommunications service providers like YouTube must experience outages of "4 hours or more" before initiating damage compensation procedures.

However, under the "Netflix Law (Enforcement Decree of the Telecommunications Business Act)" effective from the 10th, Google is obligated to ensure service stability. The Ministry of Science and ICT plans to request data to identify the cause of Google's service outage. A ministry official stated, "We will take measures to notify domestic users in Korean about the service interruption and, after verifying the facts, review necessary actions according to the Enforcement Decree of the Telecommunications Business Act."

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