Kakao Extends 'Service Outage Damage' Claims Submission Until the 6th of Next Month

On the 20th, as Kakao entered an emergency management system following a data center fire disruption and the resignation of CEO Namgung Hoon, employees were arriving at the lobby of Kakao Ajit in Seongnam, Gyeonggi Province. Photo by Kang Jin-hyung, Seongnam aymsdream@

[Asia Economy Reporter Seungjin Lee] Kakao has extended the period for receiving reports of damages caused by the service disruption by five days.

On the 31st, Kakao announced that the period for receiving damage reports related to service disruptions on KakaoTalk and other platforms, which began on the 19th, has been extended from the original November 1st to November 6th.

A Kakao representative stated, "We extended the period so that more people can apply."

Earlier, Kim Beom-su, head of Kakao Future Initiative Center, revealed during the comprehensive audit by the National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting Committee on the 24th that the number of damage reports received as of that day was approximately 45,000.

Several Kakao services, including KakaoTalk, experienced disruptions for about five days until the 20th due to a fire at SK C&C's Pangyo data center on the 15th.

Kakao had about 32,000 servers at the Pangyo data center, but due to inadequate redundancy measures, users experienced inconvenience in using the services.

In response, Kakao announced that it would compensate not only paid service users but also free service users.

Kakao expects the compensation amount for paid users to reach approximately 40 billion KRW. Paid services such as Kakao Webtoon, Kakao Page, Melon, KakaoTalk emoticons, and KakaoTalk Talk Storage have provided compensation through extended usage periods or cash payments.

The estimated compensation amount for free users is expected to be calculated after the damage report period ends.

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