Google Korea plans to introduce an age-verification system to its search engine on September 1, by having users verify their age when searching for any of about 700 Korean words judged to be adult and supplied to the portal by the Korean government. The system will be combined with a localized version of the SafeSearch system that is already used on Google's main English-language search engine to ascertain the context of the search. Users will have to enter their name and national resident registration number, which will be checked against a database to verify the user (or at least the person whose data has been entered) is old enough.
Similar systems are in use by all of Korea's major Internet search portals. Google is becoming more active in South Korea and recently began hiring people to work at a new research and development center planned for Seoul. It faces stiff competition in the Korean market from established local search engines including Naver, Empas, and Daum.
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