First application of the Netflix Act in Korea
New inquiry page for user protection
Google, the world’s largest search engine, and YouTube, a video service, went into trouble on December 14 last year. Photo = Yonhap News
The government asked Google to improve the system and check measures to secure service stabilization measures against Google, which caused a failure for an hour last year. This is the first case of applying the so-called’Netflix Act’.
However, as the evaluation that corrective measures are weak compared to the degree of disability, some point out whether it is a’cotton bat punishment’.
The Ministry of Science and Technology and Information and Communication held a briefing on the 8th and announced that it applied Article 22-7 of the Telecommunications Business Act to secure service stability and improve user protection measures to Google.
If another failure occurs in the future, the Korean users will be informed of the related facts in Korean through Google Korea’s blog, Facebook, and Twitter.
This is the first case of applying the so-called’Netflix Act’.
According to the telecommunications business law revised last year, value-added telecommunications business operators with an average of more than 1 million visitors a day and generating more than 1% of total domestic traffic are subject to the Netflix Act.
In Korea, six additional telecommunications providers, including Google, Facebook, Netflix, Naver, Kakao, and Wave.
Prior to this, Google services, such as YouTube and Gmail, that required logins, caused a worldwide disruption for about an hour from 8:30 pm on December 14 last year.
According to the Netflix Act, the Ministry of Science and ICT received failure-related data from Google and found that the cause of the failure was the lack of storage space in the’user authentication system’ that handles user login requests.
In October of last year, Google renovated its user authentication system. At this time, you had to enter an appropriate amount for the storage space setting value, but Google did not allocate the storage space and incorrectly entered ‘0’. Maintenance results were applied after 45 days for stability, so no failure occurred on the day of maintenance.
On December 14, last year, 45 days after the maintenance work, the user authentication system was not allocated storage space, and Google services that were available only after the user logged in caused a failure.
Google restored the service by urgently allocating storage space to the user authentication system on the day of the failure.
The Ministry of Science and ICT asked Google to improve the system so that incorrect settings could be detected in advance. When the storage space is exceeded, the existing space recycling technology is applied so that the user authentication system can operate normally. Even if the storage space is full, user authentication can continue reading stored data.
The Ministry of Science and ICT asked Google to re-check overall measures to secure service stability measures, such as facility pre-inspection, server multiplexing, and content transmission optimization prescribed in the Enforcement Decree of the Telecommunications Business Act.
Including these recommendations, including the purpose of the Telecommunications Business Act Enforcement Decree and measures to prevent recurrence of failures, the guidelines that must be prepared were improved, and the information required to notify the Ministry of Science and ICT was also included.
At the time of the failure, Google notified of the failure in English on Google Twitter, etc., but the fact that there was no Korean guide is also improved.
If a similar problem occurs in the future, the Ministry of Science and ICT has to notify the fact of disability in Korean through Google Korea’s blog, Facebook, and Twitter.
In addition, Google Korea should inform the Korean media of the disability. In the Google Customer Center, there is also a feature called’Contact a domestic agent’ that allows you to inquire in Korean.
The Ministry of Science and ICT received data on recent disability-related facts from Wave, which exposed adult material for several seconds in Pororo video on the 5th. The Ministry of Science and ICT plans to review related documents with experts.
“Last year, through the revision of the telecommunications business law, an institutional foundation has been secured to protect users of value-added communication services,” said Hong Jin-bae, the communication policy officer of the Ministry of Science and ICT.
Reporter Jo Ara Hankyung.com [email protected]