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A 28-year-old college graduate from a Seoul suburb, who gave only his surname Oh, was concerned about his Internet posts deemed offensive to the government's policies as he was preparing for an interview to get a government job.
Worried about the news story that some applicants had been previously disqualified for the civil service exam due to anti-government Internet comments, Oh started removing his Internet posts.'
Soon, he faced frustration as he was unable to access some of his past online posts because he forgot a password or had trouble signing into his accounts as some social media sites closed operations.
"I found that once I put something on the Internet, it is very hard to remove it," said Oh. "So, I decided to ask an online content-removal firm to erase my posts."
In South Korea, one of the world's most-wired nations, Oh is not the only one commissioning a "digital undertaker" to remove Internet posts, photos and video clips deemed inappropriate or sexually explicit photos or videos of people distributed without their consent.
In the US, the term "digital undertaker" refers to those who clear clients' digital assets when they die. But in South Korea, the term is widely used for those who are engaged in so-called "online reputation management" businesses that help clients remove their personal information or sexually explicit photos and videos distributed without their consent.
Lee Dong-yi, chief executive of an online-content removal firm named Cyber Undertaker, said he regularly receives 10 to 20 calls a day from potential clients. "With the advent of social networking sites such as Facebook, Instagram and Tumblr, people's personal information is leaked without their knowledge and such information is being increasingly exploited," Lee said.
Typically, if a client asks for help, Lee said his company would ask Internet portals and other social networking sites to remove his or her posts or erase links to such information. In most cases, Internet portals and social networking sites accept such requests, although it takes more time for foreign sites to do so, Lee said.
Lee said his company's commission fees range from 300,000 won (US$252), for an individual client, to 3 million won, for a celebrity or corporate client, per request. One of the most important ethics for a digital undertaker is to keep secrets about clients, Lee said.
There are about 30 online-content removal firms in South Korea, Lee said. A bill to make it easier for people to remove their personal information from the Internet is still pending at the National Assembly, but the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) announced a set of guidelines in June this year to "guarantee the right to be forgotten."
An official at the privacy protection and ethics division at the KCC, the telecoms regulator, said the guidelines aim to help people who "face disadvantages in their work and personal lives -- such as in marriage, gaining employment and career promotions -- because of their past online posts."
(Yonhap)
reporter
Park Sae-jin
swatchsjp@ajunews.com
