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Internet portal Daum is reeling these days. While it appeared to wield online public opinion on the anti-U.S. beef protests, recently it has seen fewer pageviews and the resignation of founder Lee Jae-woong and key executives. Moreover, the government is seeking to heighten Internet portals' social responsibilities while securities firms are dimming their formerly bright forecasts on the prospects of e-business.
Internet market surveyor KoreanClick says 2.95 million people visited the Daum discussion forum Agora in the second week of July, down 10 percent from the week before and down 17 percent from the first week of June when the beef protests were at their peak. Visitors to the Daum site in general also fell by 500,000 from the second week of June. Another Internet survey agency MetriX says Daum visitors fell 13.9 percent in the second week of July from the week before.
Against this backdrop, Daum founder Lee Jae-woong has resigned as president of Lycos, Daum's U.S.-based portal. In March he resigned as a registered board member of Daum and recently even dropped the symbolic position of company employee. There are ceaseless rumors in the stock market of a company selloff, fueled by reportedly lengthy merger talks early this year with NCsoft, a Korean developer famous for the online game "Lineage." Stock experts say a selloff would be a good move. Lee flatly denied the rumored sale in a telephone interview with the Chosun Ilbo. "I'm simply delegating management to Daum executives as they have my trust," he said.
As Daum suffers the public backlash, Korea's leading portal Naver has also raised its guard. Naver, run by NHN, is in a tense mood as the government moves to hold portals more responsible for libelous online posts and regulate their abuse of monopoly power. The chief of an Internet research firm said, "If the government regulates the portals' monopoly trade practices, small-scale online businesses will welcome it with open arms."
(englishnews@chosun.com )
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