Tim Starling wrote:
RYU Cheol wrote:
We have some servers in Seoul, Korea, which are
donated by Yahoo,
right? (I'm not sure, let me know) Then it's a web site in South
Korea.
Those servers are no longer being used to serve the website, they're
just being used for a few miscellaneous tasks. We're planning to move
all remaining operations in Korea to Florida, and to return the
servers to Yahoo. These plans can be hurried up if it's necessary for
legal reasons.
Is there an English translation of the law in question, available on
the web?
Answering my own question:
http://www.worldlii.org/int/other/PrivLRes/2005/2.html
Article 55 appears to be relevant:
(1) The Minister of Information and Communication may request the
information and communications service providers, etc. (in this
Article, including any person falling under a case where the
provisions of Article 58 apply mutatis mutandis) to submit related
goods and documents, etc., if it is necessary to enforce this Act.
From Article 2:
3. "Information and communications service providers" shall mean the
operators of telecommunications as prescribed in Article 2 (1) 1 of
the Telecommunications Business Act and other persons who provide
information or intermediate information services for profit utilizing
the services rendered by the telecommunications service providers;
From the Telecommunications Business Act:
<http://www.itu.int/ITU-D/treg/Legislation/Korea/BusinessAct.htm>
1.the term "telecommunications business operator" means a person who
provides telecommunications service with holding the relevant license
or making a registration or report under this Act"
Article 58:
(1) The provisions of Articles 22 through 32 shall apply mutatis
mutandis where any person prescribed by the Presidential Decree, from
among other persons than the information and communications service
provider, who provides goods or services, collects, utilizes or
provides the personal information of customers of his/her goods or
services. In this case, the "information and communications service
provider" and the "information and communications service providers,
etc." shall be deemed the "providers of goods or services," and the
"user" shall be deemed the "customer of goods or services,"
respectively.
So I guess the question is then, whether Wikimedia is prescribed by
the Presidential Decree. Google would qualify under the definition in
article 2, since they are for-profit. We would need to come under
article 58 if we were to be subject to this legislation.
In any case, there are the usual difficulties of international
jurisdiction, as amply demonstrated by the court cases against us in
Germany. Unlike Google, Wikimedia would have the option of ignoring
any decision by the Korean courts. But the government could easily
retaliate by DNS poisoning if it came to that.
-- Tim Starling