Updated: Google Says It Is Still Examining Korea's Real-Name Verification Law

"It's corporate philosophy states: "...we have a responsibility to protect your privacy and security.""

How does Google's complying with the South Korea's real-ID law negatively impact their corporate philosophy on protecting people's privacy and security?

The Minerva incident is a reflection of the Korean government's laws on press, and not on the real-ID law. Even if the country didn't have the real-ID law, the author(s) would have been tracked down just as easily. The link between the issues you're trying to establish is tenuous at best.

South Korea is an extremely homogeneous and dense country where people's interests are not as diverse as those of Americans, and information travel extremely fast. Their online and offline lives are much more deeply intertwined than ours. People die and livelihood can be destroyed very quickly by what is said and propagated on the internet. This is something many outsiders just won't understand unless they've lived in Korea for a long time.

"More importantly, it would show that Google has a backbone and will stand up to defend its own principles and the rights of Internet users around the world. Otherwise it should just f*ck the shut up talking about its "serious" responsibility to people's rights to privacy and freedom of speech."

Here we go again with the U.S. / western imperialism. You sound just like Bush, except you're trying to use a publicly owned company as a proxy instead of a war.

pcurve: Thanks for an insightful response that provides a cultural context.

However, I'd like to see a company stand up for the things it says it stands up for. I'm very 1.0 about such things.

Why is allowing people to post content with fake names unprincipled? Many of the problems that plague the internet come from gratuitous anonymity. Privacy for consumers is one thing, but having producers of content be anonymous often does more harm than good, since it discourages any sort of accountability.

It may be that Google simply bowed to the Korean government in order to do business there. But disallowing anonymous publication is not a violation of privacy. Absent situations where there is a real risk of retribution, people who have integrity stand behind their words. Some people even do so when they are at risk--those people have the most integrity of all.

You call it cultural differences, but you should call it authoritarian apologism. A right to free speech is an ideal that we consider to be inalienable, this shouldn't be a cultural difference.

Daniel, the lessons of history teach us the importance of striving to uphold these ideals. Anonymity has served a purpose, please see the Federalist Papers, Letters of Junius or Voltaire's Candide.

The global media is far too worried about whose dress is more stylish - Mrs. Obama or Mrs. Sarkozy? - to worry about a little thing like Google caving in on user principles. Thanks Tom for highlighting this. It's a scary precedent, and Google needs to be held accountable for its own PR.

As for the first poster, I appreciate your perspective, but the rights to freedom and privacy (along with self-setermination) are the rights I'm willing to push beyond my countries boundaries. And if anyone threatens them here, I'm willing to drop bombs for those rights.

pcurve nailed it. You gotta remember that South Korea actually had the majority of people there believe that mad cow disease would be extremely contagious and could be spread airborne or by kissing. And most of these rumors that were accepted as facts were spread via the internet.

Oh yes and also, some celebrities have been know to commit suicide based on the rumors that are spread on the internet in South Korea. Once again, it's because many people take it as fact.

130n, those are not very good reasons to restrict liberties =(

here are some valid reasons to promote anonymity in speech:

anonymous pamphlets, leaflets, and books have played an important role in the progress of mankind. Great works of literature have been produced by authors writing under assumed names. an author generally is free to decide whether or not to disclose her true identity. The decision in favor of anonymity may be motivated by fear of economic or official retaliation, by concern about social ostracism, or merely by a desire to preserve as much of one's privacy as possible. Whatever the motivation may be, at least in the field of literary endeavor, the interest in having anonymous works enter the marketplace of ideas unquestionably outweighs any public interest in requiring disclosure as a condition of entry. Ideas may be more persuasive if readers are unaware of a writer's
identity.

Anonymity can also provide a way for a writer who may be
personally unpopular to ensure that readers will not prejudge her
message simply because they do not like its proponent.

Thanks for bringing this to our attention because obviously many of us have missed it. Unfortunately Google caving in is not all that surprising, and I believe that we may even find ourselves with more restrictions in the years to come.
Sad!

Despite the fact that I actually don't support the anonymity on the web (although do like to have the option), I don't see how this "move" affects privacy, security or freedom of speech.

It is strange how people who are most keen about the first part of the concept of freedom of speech -- the ability to say whatever you think is right, are usually the same people who forget about the second part of that concept -- the obligation to take responsibility for whatever it is you've been saying. It's exactly this what anti-anonymity law is for. Not to take the freedom of speech from you, but to give it to you in its full flavor.

Privacy is also not the issue here. Youtube is one of the most visited resources on the web, so when you "say" something there, it's like coming to a 100,000-people music show, getting on stage and shouting into the microphone. If you're willing to pull off something like that, privacy is the last thing you have to be concerned about.

The security, well, this is not that simple. In theory. In practice, it's even simpler: even in the has-bears-on-the-streets Russia (where I live), it takes about two weeks tops to get someone who not only didn't use their real name, but even took some rookie hackerish precautions like using proxy-servers to hide their identity.

Yes, there is a lot of crap said on the internet and people are mean. Get over it.

Look, it's one thing for an organization to voluntarily restrict comments, or to require their members to identify themselves before posting. However, it is wrong for a government to force this upon their people.

I really can't drop this subject, for I feel pretty strongly about it. People talk about their rights to say whatever they wish, but the true right is the right to speak honestly without being viciously attacked for it. That is the historic tradition of free speech, that you can express your true beliefs, and there is no penalty for doing so.

riffic, if that was a response to my comment, then I have to repeat myself: there's nothing that takes your right to express your true beliefs with the anti-anonymity rule from you. In fact, if self-expression is the thing you are worried most about, then your words must be signed, otherwise it's not a self-expression, it's just some words floating in the air/put on the web page, an expression of, well, nobody.

As for whatever is right or wrong for the government of some country to do, well then, I guess you should leave that to the government of that country itself to decide. And this is probably too political and off the topic problem to discuss it here.

I feel it is important that I attach my name to my words because it puts me in a stronger position. This is especially true if I'm in an online debate with someone that is hiding behind a fake name. However, I also see the value in annonymity, in those circumstances where the debate is not on a level playing field, where there is the potential to be punished in some way for holding a particular view. Taking on a government that punishes its critics is clearly one of those situations. And there are more...
It is not a question of one over the other, but allowing both: the power of using one's name, and the protection of annonymity according to the circumstances of the situation. Our society reaps the benefit of both. What happens to societies that limit that choice? They become totalitarian, it seems.

Keep in mind that just because you're using your real name to register on the Korean sites, it doesn't mean that's the name that will be displayed to the public. On most sites, this is simply not the case.

Believe me, the lack of anonymity hasn't stopped many Korean folks from making vicious comments on public forums. The latitude on their freedom of expression is much more wide than your article suggests.

Ultimately, the lack of anonymity will not protect anybody from anything, and that goes for the U.S. and other countries too. If you make a threatening statement online here in the U.S., and the victim files a report, you will probably have to appear in court. Over there? It's less of a deal, mostly because threats like that are not taken as seriously by most people.

But if you make a blanketing false statement about food products, then yeah your chance of you getting contacted by the authority in Korea is higher than in the U.S.

In the end, if majority of Koreans were bothered by the real ID law, then most of them would've mobilized quickly and staged massive protests against it, like they have done in the past. They're the world's best protestors.

Not sure if a non-addressed statement can be considered part of a "debate". This is what youtube-style comments are actually more distinct at: there's always a name before an f-word.

I also can see little difference between using a real name and signing with a hyperlink following which would reveal not only the real name but even more details (like photo or birthdate).

And I have to adhere to my opinion here. If you can be punished for expressing your beliefs, well, that would make it sound infinitely stronger. And sometimes it's not just beliefs one should have, but also the courage to express them, because if he indeed gets unfairly punished, people will know he was telling the truth.

I wouldn't like to start the discussion on what makes a society totalitarian or whether people in freedom-of-speech-proclaimed countries indeed reap a lot from this formal right.

South Korea is an independent country with its laws and policies. Operating according with that laws is something a commercial company should do. In my view, complying with the real-name law does not contradict with the mentioned Google statement regarding privacy and security neither in theory nor (and especially) in practice.

I'm looking forward to the day when people's actions match their noble statements. There seems to be a disconcerting disconnect when it comes to companies in Silicon Valley, and beyond.

On the subject of annonymity on the Internet, I feel that choice is good for free speech, and restrictions are not.

Just because there might be few cases of direct prosecution of online dissenters today doesn't mean it will stay that way. The past is always searchable and future governments might become more hostile to anyone that once looked like an enemy. Or maybe was Facebook friends with them.

What is the reason people died for freedom...? To give it away to the government so that they can take care of you? BULL FUCKING SHIT. Internet is probably the only place in this universe that free speech is really free speech. Developed nation like SK taking away its peoples liberty is just showing how they are no different from their brothers up north and their neighbors.

Google refused Korean government's real-name system, afterall.

http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/349076.html

Google refuses South Korean government's real-name system
Google bypasses internet regulations regarding user protections by limiting YouTube Korea’s Web site functionality


http://english.hani.co.kr/arti/english_edition/e_international/349078.html
[Analysis] Google chooses its credibility over profit in South Korea
Google seems to have measured international attention, weighing losses and refusing to conform to S. Korea’s Internet regulations

@Daniel Tunkelang
...It's just like parenting. If you want to have kids be responsible for what they're exposed to. As for anonymous bloggers, people will have to learn the hard way who to believe or not to believe. If someone is posting info anonymously, people should suspect their credibility. We don't need more nanny states like the US.
@ 130n
I'd like to know where you got your info. as above, you have no credibility as you are anonymous and also because you do not cite any sources.
I've lived in Korea for over 5 years and never met anybody who thought Mad Cow could be spread the way you've stated. Who do you talk to? elementary school kids?