YouTube, Google should notify users of service errors in Korean, says S. Korean authorities

Regarding a connection error of YouTube and Gmail in December last year, the South Korean government ordered Google to notify its users of similar problems in the future in Korean and to examine measures for system improvement and more stable service.

The Ministry of Science and ICT announced on Monday that the ministry ordered Google to make improvements for more stable service according to the Telecommunications Business Act, which was initially called the Netflix law. This is the first case to which the law to impose the duty of maintaining service quality on value-added common carriers causing high traffic has been applied. Google, which is visited by one million users on a daily basis and accounts for more than one percent of South Korea’s internet traffic, Facebook, Netflix, and three other companies are subject to the law.

Google experienced a connection issue for about an hour for its services that require log-in, including YouTube and Gmail, on December 14, 2020. According to the government inspection, the issue was caused by the lack of sufficient storage in its user authentication system. Google was unaware of the set value error that caused the issue for 45 days and failed to notify domestic users of the issue in Korean. The government recommended better advanced detection and storage space recycle to Google to prevent a recurrence. In case of similar issues in the future, the company is required to notify via Google Korea’s blog in Korean or the South Korean media.

Compensations for the connection issue were not included in the measure. According to the act, value-added common carriers are only required to make compensations for issues that last four hours or longer.


Dong-Jin Shin shine@donga.com