A Seoul court on Wednesday dismissed claims by plaintiffs that e-mail and file leaks from Daum
Communications Corp., the operator of South Korea's second most-visited Internet portal, had caused them damage.
A group of 70 Daum users had filed a collective suit seeking 300,000 won (US$254) each for emotional distress and damage from spam mail received after their e-mail messages and attached files were leaked to others in the process of Daum's security system upgrade in July 2008. About 500 emails or attached files were estimated to have been exposed for about 50 minutes during the incident.
The Seoul Central District Court ruled in favor of Daum, saying there was "no evidence to prove the damage" as claimed by the defendants.
The court rejected the plaintiffs' argument that Daum failed to take necessary protective measures, noting the portal had acted promptly to correct the system failure. It also took note that no error was detected during the one-week trial run period ahead of the release of the new security program.
Glitches like these may be realistically inevitable in the current technological environment, the court also said.
"While there is a high demand for improvement in the Internet program's function, it is nearly impossible to completely eliminate the possibility of having a computer bug considering the current
level of technology and profit conditions," it said.
In January, a Seoul court dismissed a collective damage suit against Internet Auction over identity theft from hacking, dismissing
users' claims that the company made a mistake in protecting its security system.