Naver Faces Consecutive Controversies in Commerce Business... 'Risk Management' Put to the Test

[Asia Economy Reporter Kang Nahum] In Naver's commerce business division, consumer damages such as unauthorized use of personal information by consignment companies and sellers' 'meoktwi' (absconding after payment) are occurring continuously. Along with criticism that consumer protection is neglected in the rush to increase sales, evaluations have emerged that the risk management ability of the next management team is being put to the test.

According to the IT industry on the 7th, an incident occurred on the sneaker trading platform 'KREAM' where an employee attempted private contact using a female customer's personal information. The employee sent a personal text message suggesting to 'follow each other on SNS' after seeing the information written on the box. KREAM is a sneaker secondhand trading platform that promotes 'anonymous and safe transactions' and is a grandchild company of Naver.

A Naver official explained, "The employee in question was not affiliated with Naver but was an employee of a company commissioned by KREAM to provide the service. We determined that this was a prohibited act under the employment contract and took dismissal action." They added, "We also adjusted the reception method so that the seller's contact information could not be known."

On Naver Shopping, there was also an incident where dozens of consumers' money was embezzled by abusing the 'automatic purchase confirmation' function and then the perpetrator disappeared. One buyer purchased a dryer priced in the 800,000 KRW range from a Naver Shopping tenant company A, but did not receive the product, and the purchase was automatically confirmed, resulting in the payment being deposited to the seller. It has been confirmed that there were dozens more such damage cases. A Naver official said, "It is understood as a so-called 'meoktwi' where the seller abused the policy to receive payment by abusing (fraudulent use) the system as if the purchase was confirmed without sending the product," and added, "We are reviewing internal system upgrades to prevent similar cases from occurring."

Naver Shopping was also recently sanctioned after it was confirmed to have violated the Electronic Commerce Act. According to the Electronic Commerce Act, a business operator mediating transactions between product sellers and consumers must verify and notify the seller's business name and representative's name in advance. However, Naver did not properly establish standards for this and received a corrective order from the Fair Trade Commission.

As a result, criticism has arisen that the company neglects consumer protection. The commerce division grew rapidly under the leadership of CEO Han Seong-sook. Last year's fourth-quarter sales increased by 27.9% year-on-year and 6.6% quarter-on-quarter to 405.2 billion KRW, ranking second after the search division.

In particular, the commerce business is based on trust among sellers, consumers, and the platform, so continued controversies can be fatal. This is why attention is focused on the risk management ability of the next management team centered on the designated CEO Choi Soo-yeon. An industry insider said, "Since new business divisions such as commerce have entered a growth trajectory, it is now time to also pursue service stability," adding, "The new management should listen to consumer complaints and opinions and respond accordingly."

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