{"id":49334,"date":"2026-06-11T12:37:47","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T06:52:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/?p=49334"},"modified":"2026-06-11T12:37:47","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T06:52:47","slug":"s-korea-hits-coupang-with-record-fine-over-e-commerce-data-leak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/s-korea-hits-coupang-with-record-fine-over-e-commerce-data-leak\/","title":{"rendered":"S.Korea hits Coupang with record fine over e-commerce data leak"},"content":{"rendered":"
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South Korea hit e-commerce giant Coupang with a record $408 million fine Thursday over a leak that allegedly exposed more than 30 million customers’ data and has provoked the ire of US lawmakers.<\/p>\n

Coupang, the country’s largest online retail platform, signalled in a statement that it would challenge the fine in court.<\/p>\n

The government’s move caps a months-long probe into Coupang, which is incorporated in the United States.<\/p>\n

Allegations of a massive data leak first surfaced in November and have become an unexpected source of friction between Seoul and Washington.<\/p>\n

Seoul’s Personal Information Protection Commission said it would “impose a total of 624.68 billion won in fines… on Coupang for violating safety obligations and collecting personal data without legal grounds”.<\/p>\n

It is by far the largest ever penalty for a data leak in South Korea — far exceeding the previous record of a $88 million fine imposed last year on mobile carrier SK Telecom.<\/p>\n

“Inadequate basic safeguards, including poor management of authentication signing keys and lax access controls” caused the personal data of around 37.5 million users to be exposed, the commission said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Coupang has maintained that only 3,000 customer records were involved.<\/p>\n

Commission chair Song Kyung-hee told a press briefing Thursday that the retail giant should have notified affected individuals within 72 hours.<\/p>\n

But Coupang “delayed breach notifications”, she said. “As a result, those individuals were unaware of the breach and deprived of the opportunity to take steps to prevent secondary harm.”<\/p>\n

Coupang on Thursday apologised for causing concern to customers and the public, vowing to strengthen its data protection framework.<\/p>\n

“However, we regret that proactive measures taken to prevent secondary damage and explanations based on clear facts regarding last year’s data breach were not sufficiently reflected” in the commission’s decision, it said.<\/p>\n

“After receiving the commission’s official ruling, we expect the facts to be clearly established through legal procedures,” Coupang added.<\/p>\n

– US dispute –<\/p>\n

The commission also said Coupang had “unlawfully collected the online activity records of about 11.17 million users on third-party websites and apps, and stored them in a database in a state that allowed individual identification”.<\/p>\n

In April, South Korean lawmakers sent a joint letter raising concerns over “undue pressure” from US politicians regarding Seoul’s investigation into the e-commerce giant.<\/p>\n

The letter, co-signed by nearly 100 MPs, followed accusations by US Republicans that the probe into the US-listed company constituted “discriminatory regulatory actions” against American businesses.<\/p>\n

The dispute has also reportedly affected high-level security talks between the two allies, according to local media.<\/p>\n

Washington is said to have warned it would halt such talks unless the legal protections of Coupang chairman Kim Bom — an American citizen also known as Kim Bom-suk — were guaranteed.<\/p>\n

The Coupang fine will “again draw backlash from the US” for its size, said Kim Dae-jong, professor of business at Sejong University in Seoul.<\/p>\n

“Given it’s far more than the previous high imposed on SK Telecom, Washington is expected to protest the move, with the view that it is an over-the-top measure,” he said.\u00a0“Coupang is certain to challenge the move by taking it to court,” Kim added.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Korea hit e-commerce giant Coupang with a record $408 million fine Thursday over a leak that allegedly exposed more than 30 million customers’ data and has provoked the ire of US lawmakers. Coupang, the country’s largest online retail platform, signalled in a statement that it would challenge the fine in court. The government’s move […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":49335,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49334"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49334"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49334\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49336,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49334\/revisions\/49336"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49335"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nepalsamaj.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}