YouTube users in South Korea may have to confirm their real identities to use the site in the near future. There is a law in that country that requires them to do so and would require Google to turn over information to the South Korean government when asked. The Hankyoreh explains:

eBay is in talks to buy a minority stake in South Korean competitor Gmarket and is in discussions with Interpark to buy its 37 percent stake.

The companies are waiting for approval from the Korea Fair Trade Commission, eBay spokesman Jose Mallabo said.

"There can be no assurance that the KFTC will approve the possible transaction, that an agreement will be reached or that a transaction will occur," Mallabo said in a statement.

The government of South Korea is working on plans to place more regulations on the Internet in the country.

South Korea is the most wired country in the world and the Internet played a major role in helping ex-Hyundai CEO Lee Myung Bak get elected president. Now the government is considering a Cyber Defamation Law.

"We have to guard against ‘infodemics,’ in which inaccurate, false information is disseminated, prompting social unrest that spreads like an epidemic," Lee told parliament early in July.

The South Korean Government Information Agency cut Internet connections to a number of ministry pressrooms on Thursday. The move is part of an effort by South Korea to shut down what it calls collusive clubs.

Google has often had PR problems with its Maps and Earth services; the search giant has also had trouble gaining market share in South Korea.  Now a problem that involves both of these issues may be resolved, although the exact solution (assuming there is one) remains unknown.

When a high-ranking Googler said that South Korea will “play a very critical role for Google,” I thought the company might be preparing to make some major change or concession.  Sure enough, something unusual occurred: the Korean version of Google’s famously “clean” home page was spruced up with some colors and animated buttons.

Significant, important, decisive – these words are all pretty much synonyms, though they have different shades of meaning.  But Kannan Pashupathy, Google’s Director of International Engineering Operations, didn’t pick any of them when describing South Korea’s importance to the search engine giant.  Instead, he called the relationship “critical.”

Korea “To Play A Very Critical Role For Google”

Even though Google has been drawing more Korean users to its search and Gmail services, the company still has work to do to make the local government happy with its AdSense practices.