 |
A panoramic view of the Naver headquarters. (Photo courtesy of Naver) |
[Alpha Biz= Kim Jisun] SEOUL, South Korea — Feb 5, 2026 — Naver, South Korea’s leading search portal, has issued a public apology following a technical glitch that exposed past posts and comments made by high-profile figures—including politicians, entertainers, and athletes—on its Q&A platform, "Ji-sik-iN."
Incident Details and Sudden Exposure According to industry sources on February 5, the incident began on the evening of February 4 when a new "Ji-sik-iN" button was added to the profile section of Naver’s Person Search results. This update inadvertently linked official profiles to the individuals' past personal activity on the Q&A service, allowing the public to view posts made years, or even decades, ago. Captured images of these posts rapidly spread across online communities.
Notable Exposed Content Among the exposed posts, a 2004 comment by Representative Chun Ha-ram of the Reform Party, written during his college years, gained significant attention. In response to a query about gender discrimination at Korea University, Chun had written, "It’s a bit absurd... male students at Korea University aren't all frustrated perverts."
Other exposed posts included media personality Hong Jin-kyung recommending a specific medical clinic in a post about "how to stop growing taller" a year ago, and actor Heo Sung-tae’s past advice regarding stock market investments.
Cause and Remedial Action The exposure is believed to have occurred during a process intended to sync Ji-sik-iN content with the accounts used to register or modify official "Person Search" information. Naver took immediate action to disable the links by approximately 10:00 PM on February 4.
"An error occurred where Ji-sik-iN profile links were publicly displayed on Naver Person Search," the company explained via its official Ji-sik-iN blog. "We sincerely apologize for causing significant inconvenience and concern to our users."
Commitment to Prevention Naver emphasized that it is currently reviewing all settings and connection processes between services to ensure such an incident does not recur. "The Ji-sik-iN service team is re-examining the entire linkage process with other services. We will exert our utmost efforts to ensure service stability moving forward," the company added.
Alphabiz Reporter Kim Jisun(stockmk2020@alphabiz.co.kr)
