South Korean May Take Legal Action Over Google’s YouTube Law Loophole

paidContent reports South Korean officials are not happy with how Google skirted around their law to continue to allow YouTube to operate in Korea by simply turning off video comments and upload ability in that country. South Korea passed a new law requiring sites with 100,000 unique visitors per day to require users to provide […]

Chat with SearchBot

paidContent reports South Korean officials are not happy with how Google skirted around their law to continue to allow YouTube to operate in Korea by simply turning off video comments and upload ability in that country.

South Korea passed a new law requiring sites with 100,000 unique visitors per day to require users to provide their real name and national ID card number before posting videos and comments. Google decided to simply remove the ability to post videos and comments on YouTube Korea, but allowed it on other YouTube properties, i.e. YouTube US, even while accessed within South Korea.

Google said then:

We have a bias in favor of freedom of expression and are committed to openness. It’s very important that if users want to be anonymous that they have that chance.

Now South Korean officials are a tad upset with Google. So much so that the Korean government is considering legal action against Google.


About the author

Barry Schwartz
Staff
Barry Schwartz is a technologist and a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics.

In 2019, Barry was awarded the Outstanding Community Services Award from Search Engine Land, in 2018 he was awarded the US Search Awards the "US Search Personality Of The Year," you can learn more over here and in 2023 he was listed as a top 50 most influential PPCer by Marketing O'Clock.

Barry can be followed on X here and you can learn more about Barry Schwartz over here or on his personal site.

Get the newsletter search marketers rely on.