Police control the alley near Hamilton Hotel in Itaewon on Oct. 30, 2022, a day after a fatal crush in the area took the lives of more than 150 people during Halloween celebrations. (Yonhap)
SEOUL, Nov. 4 (Korea Bizwire) — South Korea’s two major tech giants — Kakao Corp. and Naver Corp. — have begun a crackdown on imitation police costumes on their e-commerce platforms in response to the controversy that fake police costumes obstructed the process of containing the Itaewon crowd crush.
Naver banned all searches for imitation police costumes and equipment on its shopping platform on Wednesday.
Typing in the words “police” or “police outfit” to search on Naver Shopping delivers a result that says “Naver Shopping does not provide search results for keywords related to the police.”
Before the measure was taken, searching for a ‘police outfit’ returned some 10,000 to 20,000 items.
Kakao, too, said it plans to ban the word “police uniform” on KakaoTalk’s shopping service, with the company taking down any related items and merchandise.
The measures come in response to a police request to ban all online sales of imitation police outfits and equipment.
Anyone who isn’t a police officer may be subject to up to six months in prison or under 3 million won (US$2,110) in fines for wearing, carrying, or using an imitation police outfit or equipment.
Lina Jang (linajang@koreabizwire.com)
