Gov't 'in close discussion' with Naver regarding stake in Japan's Line messenger app

Korea’s presidential office is “in close discussion” with Naver regarding the Japanese government’s recent directive urging the IT company to reduce its stake in Line.

Logos of Yahoo Japan and Line [AP/YONHAP]

Korea’s presidential office is “in close discussion” with Naver regarding the Japanese government’s recent directive urging the IT company to reduce its stake in Line, the No.1 messenger app in Japan, an anonymous source from the presidential office said Tuesday.

The comment, as reported by local media outlets, followed the Foreign Ministry's Saturday statement stressing that “there should be no discriminatory measures against our companies.”

The source said that the presidential office “is addressing the issue with full respect to Naver’s requests,” but denied rumors that the Japanese government aims to drive Korean companies out of the country with the recent directive, stressing that such accusations were “detached from the context.”

The Japanese government demanded that Line Yahoo, which operates both Line and Yahoo Japan, file reports on its pre-emptive measures, first in March and again in April, following a massive data breach in November resulting in the leakage of some 510,000 items of personal information through subcontractor Naver Cloud.

Line Yahoo is 64.5 percent owned by A Holdings, a 50:50 joint venture between Naver and Japan's SoftBank.

The Japanese government urged Line Yahoo to review its governance system, including its capital ties with Naver, blaming the company's dependency on the Korean firm for the data leak.

Launched in 2011, Line is the most used messenger in Japan with some 96 million monthly active users in the country. The number of users exceeds 200 million when other nations are included.

BY SHIN HA-NEE [shin.hanee@joongang.co.kr]