A Seoul court on Tuesday ordered SK Broadband Co., a high-speed Internet service provider, to pay a total of 4 billion won ($3.35 million) in compensation to its customers for leaking their personal information as concerns about Internet privacy grow in the world’s most wired nation.
“SK Broadband has a duty to pay compensation as it violated the (customers’) constitutional rights to self-determination over personal information,” the Seoul Central District Court said in a verdict in favor of the nearly 19,000 plaintiffs.
The ruling came less than three months after the company was ordered to pay 400 million won to 2,300 customers for the same charges.
About 23,000 SK Broadband customers have filed class-action suits in recent years, accusing the Internet provider of illegally collecting their personal data and providing it to a local telemarketing company between 2006 and 2007. The information included names, phone numbers, birth dates and addresses.
(Yonhap News)
