Kakao Completes Service Disruption Compensation... Total Amounting to 27.5 Billion KRW

Kakao has completed the support procedures for service disruption damages caused by the SK Pangyo Data Center fire that occurred on October 15 last year.

On the 30th, Kakao announced that with the end of the small business damage support application, the total compensation amount for users and business partners of the Kakao community was finally estimated at approximately 27.5 billion KRW.

Kakao, along with Kakao Games, Kakao Mobility, and Kakao Entertainment, completed compensation by the end of December according to the terms for paid service users and partners immediately after the recovery from the disruption. Additional support measures were prepared for affected partners.

Kakao decided to provide compensation for free services as well, in order to fulfill its social responsibility for the inconvenience caused to users' daily lives and business activities. To establish reasonable standards for unprecedented free service compensation, on November 14 last year, Kakao formed the "1015 Damage Support Council (hereafter, the Council)" consisting of various organizations such as the Federation of Small Businesses, Korea Startup Forum, Korea Consumer Federation, and experts in fair trade and consumer protection. The Council thoroughly analyzed approximately 87,000 damage cases reported immediately after the disruption and announced damage support policies for general users and small business owners.

According to the Council's decision, Kakao provided a total of three types of KakaoTalk emoticons to general users in January (one for permanent use and two for 90-day use), which were downloaded by about 17.3 million users. For small business owners, support funds were paid based on the standards prepared by the Council. Criteria included operating profit margin, availability of alternative services, and Kakao's market share of the relevant service. ▲For sales loss amounts of 300,000 KRW or less, 30,000 KRW was paid ▲For amounts exceeding 300,000 KRW but not exceeding 500,000 KRW, 50,000 KRW was paid ▲For amounts exceeding 500,000 KRW, the payment amount was decided through individual discussions. Out of 451 applications received, payments were confirmed for 205 cases meeting the Council's criteria, with a total support amount of about 50 million KRW. The support funds were paid in three installments starting from mid-March in the order of application and review completion.

Separately, Kakao plans to establish a win-win cooperation organization with the Federation of Small Businesses in early July to prepare additional support measures to help small business owners achieve stable growth. Both parties intend to hold consultations as soon as possible to finalize specific usage and scale and proceed with implementation.

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