Kakao Outage Leads to '3-Day Extension' Compensation for Melon and Webtoon

On the 16th, reporters were waiting at the scene of the fire at Building A of the SK C&C Pangyo Campus in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province. The fire, which occurred around 3:30 p.m. the previous day at the SK C&C data center, caused services of server tenants such as Kakao and Naver to go down one after another. In particular, Kakao services including the KakaoTalk messenger, portal Daum, KakaoT, KakaoPage, and KakaoPay experienced widespread disruptions, resulting in a nationwide outage lasting about 10 hours or more. Photo by Kim Hyun-min kimhyun81@

[Asia Economy Reporter Yoo Hyun-seok] Music platform Melon and webtoon service Kakao Webtoon, which experienced service disruptions due to a fire at the SK C&C data center, apologized to users and announced compensation measures for subscription holders.

On the 16th, Melon stated in a notice, "The Kakao account login and streaming services, which had errors since the previous day, have been normalized, but some functions are still being restored, so service use may not be smooth," and apologized.

As of that day, Melon decided to extend the usage period of all Melon subscription holders' passes by 3 days. For regular subscription users, the payment date will be postponed by 3 days from the original date. For ticket users, the expiration date will be extended by 3 days.

For those who purchased via Apple and Google in-app payments and cannot change the payment date, or for some partnership subscriptions, Melon will provide 1,500 won in Melon Cash. Those whose usage period ended on the 15th will also receive 1,500 won in cash.

Kakao Webtoon announced on the same day, "As of 7 a.m., all services have been normalized, and there was no data loss or damage," while apologizing for the service disruption and prolonged recovery.

The company plans to extend the viewing period of webtoon episodes rented or expired during the service disruption by 72 hours. Cash that expired during the disruption will be reissued.

Kakao Webtoon added, "It may take some time to verify detailed data and apply system updates," and "We will inform the timing of compensation for each case through additional notices."

Kakao Mobility also apologized in an afternoon notice, saying, "We are restoring services and are making every effort to resume services to minimize customer inconvenience through stable service," and added, "We will provide separate guidance on any further findings."

Taxi drivers using Kakao Mobility’s taxi-hailing service Kakao T experienced difficulties in accepting passengers for a while due to this error.

On the afternoon of the 16th, Kakao Mobility explained that many functions of Kakao T, including taxi, designated driver, quick delivery, and parcel services, have been restored. However, some services such as bike, parking, Kakao Navi search, Kakao Subway, and bus are still unavailable.

Earlier, a fire broke out on the 15th at the SK Corporation C&C data center housing the IT facilities of Kakao and Naver, causing errors from around 3:30 p.m. that day in many Kakao services including KakaoTalk and the portal 'Daum,' some Naver services, and SK affiliates’ websites.

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