Amid the fierce global development of super-large AI, the Line Yahoo incident has infringed upon our country's AI data sovereignty, putting the high-quality data accumulated through Line at risk of being transferred to Japan.

In response, industry insiders, including the Naver labor union, raised their voices in opposition to the realization of the sale of Naver Line Yahoo shares and demanded an active response from the government.

An emergency discussion meeting of the Naver labor union was held at the National Assembly on the 25th to prevent Japan's attempt to invade South Korea's IT technology, hosted by National Assembly members Lee Hae-min and Kim Jun-hyung of the Democratic Party of Korea.

Japan's Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications issued administrative guidance to Line Yahoo on March 5 and April 16, citing the Naver Cloud personal information breach incident as an excuse. At the Line Yahoo shareholders' meeting on the 18th, Line Yahoo CEO Takeshi Idezawa announced that he would end the consignment relationship with Naver, and that he would end the annual infrastructure service consignment worth 100 billion won performed by Naver and resolve the issue independently. As the Naver union expresses its opposition to the sale of shares, Japan is pressuring them to present countermeasures by July 1.

Experts who participated in the discussion that day expressed concern that if Line Yahoo loses its management rights, our country's platform and IT technology will go to Japan, and employment for Korean developers will become unstable.

Rep. Lee Hae-min of the Democratic Party of Korea said, “The Naver labor union is demanding job security for domestic Line affiliates and protecting the labor rights and technological capabilities of 2,500 employees,” and “As Line Yahoo is replacing its board of directors with Japanese people and planning to separate its system from Naver, this could have a serious impact on the competitiveness of our companies expanding overseas in the future, so we need to seek out multi-faceted measures to respond.”

Kim Yong-man, a member of the Democratic Party of Korea, said, “The government must not remain indifferent to prevent our country, ranked 6th in AI technology, from losing its IT sovereignty,” and argued, “If Line is sold to Japan, our country’s status in the global IT and platform market may fall behind in the future, so we must actively resolve this issue from a data protectionist perspective.”

Yoon Dae-gyun, a professor of software engineering at Ajou University, said, "Line Plus is a global service headquartered in Korea, and it can increase its competitiveness by applying Hyperclova X. However, if the management structure is transferred to SoftBank, it will be impossible for it to independently operate Line Yahoo. Therefore, it is possible that it will attempt to transform Line Plus into a purely Japanese company and place key technical personnel at the headquarters to take over Line Plus, reducing it to a shell."

In addition, "The results suggest that in terms of AI data sovereignty, all software platforms are likely to evolve based on FM to create AI innovation based on the Foundation Model (FM)," and "Since FM is created based on high-quality data, FM technology and creationHe explained, "It is important to respond at the national level to secure AI technology and create an industrial ecosystem."

For example, in the case of overseas AI models, there are cases where Korea's latest information updates are delayed and incorrect learning occurs. Therefore, protecting data sovereignty is an important issue beyond the level of a single company, but also at the national level.

Gwangsoo's Bokdeokbang CEO Lee Gwang-soo said, "Line Yahoo recorded net profit of approximately 1.3 trillion won in 2023, but if the sale of Line shares through Naver's A Holdings becomes a reality, an annual profit decrease of approximately 300 billion won is inevitable," and insisted, "We must make the problems of Yahoo (Softbank), a joint equity company with the Japanese government, known externally."

As semiconductor and AI-related companies are expanding their investments in Japan, including Taiwan TSMC's recent $9 billion investment in a semiconductor plant, this is a way to inform overseas companies of the uncertainty and risks of investment.

In terms of Naver's AI development business opportunities, US attorney Jeon Su-jin added, "In the data economy era where data becomes a company's main asset through analysis and processing, Naver's data processing technology is a success factor for its platform business, and it appears that it has the authority to utilize user data."