[Aju News DB]
South Korea's largest portal provider Naver was acquitted Thursday of leaking personal information in a case that sparked debate over Internet privacy in one of the world's most wired countries.
The legal battle dates back to 2010 when a 35-year-old man identified only by his surname Cha was accused of defaming then-culture Minister Yu In-chon on a community platform operated by Naver.
At the request of police, Naver provided Cha's personal information to investigators without a warrant such as his registration number, address and phone number. Cha filed a suit seeking compensation, insisting Naver failed to protect privacy and user information.
A district court favoured Naver, but an appeals court ordered Naver to compensate Cha 500,000 won (414 US dollars) saying the portal provider was not in an urgent situation to leak user information without a warrant.
The Supreme Court, however, returned the case to the lower court for retrial, ruling that Naver has no duty to review individual cases selectively in providing personal information to investigators.
Following the appeals court's ruling, there has been a public consensus that South Korean portal providers should not leak personal information without a warrant.
Aju News Lim Chang-won = cwlim34@ajunews.com
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
