1월 31st, 2006
The Korean Times: http://times.hankooki.com/
By Cho Jin-seo
Google, the world’s third largest Web site by the number of visitors, may go head-to-head against a 24,592nd-ranked South Korean site in a tiny but potentially damaging lawsuit.
The U.S. Internet giant was accused by Humor University (Utkin Taehak), www.humoruniv.com, a popular Internet community site which mainly carries humorous articles, of not paying the Korean site for having Google’s advertisements on its Web site for two months.
“Don’t trust Google,” says a banner on the Web site posted by Lee Jung-min, operator of Humor University, which claims to have some 400,000 visitors everyday. Lee said he will file a lawsuit against Google, supported by the rising anti-Google sentiment in Korea’s Internet society.
“First, I planned to sue Google’s Korean office, not Google’s headquarters, because of the financial matters of going through an international lawsuit,” Lee said. “But I have changed my mind after talking with reporters here since yesterday. They all encouraged me to sue Google U.S.A., and I will do so as soon as possible. Money is not a problem here.”
Google’s AdSense program allows Web site owners to enroll and have Google’s advertisements on their sites. The owners receive a service fee on a per-click basis. According to Lee, Humor University signed up for the program on Oct. 12 but was never paid. It was notified of the termination of its contract on Dec. 16.
Lee said that he was supposed to receive a check of around 20 million won, but only received an e-mail from Google saying that it terminated the contract because it spotted unnatural behavior in the Humor University’s Web site which seemed to raise the number of clicks.
Lee also revealed the e-mail correspondences between him and Google’s advertising department in the United States, in which Google refused to give evidence of the violation of the contract, saying it is its “corporate policy to keep secret how the detecting system works.”
The Humor University’s Web site has been flooded with negative comments about Google from its viewers. Also, there are a few claims that there are other Web sites, which were treated in the same way by Google, deserted after running Google’s advertisements.
Google couldn’t be contacted Wednesday, but its public relations representative in Seoul said that it is waiting for action by headquarters.
“AdSense is operated by a computer algorithm, not by humans,” said Kim Ji-sun, a manager at Hoffman Agency. “Google’s Korean office has nothing to do with the case as it is only a sales branch. We are currently waiting for answers from the advertising department in the United States.
AdSense’s contract states that it may suspend or terminate the program at any time at its sole discretion when subcontractors violate the program’s rules. However, Humor University’s Lee insists that there was no such violation, such as use of an automated clicking tool, or encouraging its members to click on the advertisement.
“We never used such attempts to raise the number of clicks on the advertisement. So I suggested Google look into the matter with us and show us the evidence, but they simply refused to do so,” Lee said. “I tried my best to solve the problem, but they never tried theirs. I think they are just waiting for everything to calm down, thinking it is just a surprise event or something like that.”
Google has been preparing to expand in South Korea beginning last year, and has been interviewing candidates for the chief of its Korean affiliate since the summer.
The company is also hiring high-ranking managers who will operate Google Korea. Currently, it has only a few sales representatives in its liaison office in Samsong-dong in southern Seoul, while most of its Korean services such as the search engine, e-mail and advertisement are all developed and managed at its headquarters in the United States.