Yahoo will be closing up shop and completely exiting the South Korean market as the year ends.
According to Yahoo, the move is part of its effort to streamline its operations and focus more on its global business.
The move comes part of new Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer’s plans for the ailing internet company which has seen its lead taken by Google.
A former Google vice president, Mayer is bent on reshaping the company to regain its former glory. Part of her plan is to add key personnel to her team …

HTC will withdraw its South Korean office following successive backslides and failures that prevented it from gaining traction in the market.
The woeful decision is on the heels of extreme difficulty for the Taiwan-based phone maker, which unveiled to analysts and the press its second quarter earnings last week. HTC only posted $246 million in net profits for the period, 58 percent lower than Q2 2011.
A local HTC spokesperson told the Korea Times, “Our withdrawal here will be a long term …

South Korea law enforcement officers today have apprehended two men charged of stealing personal data from 8.7 million local subscribers in one of the Asian country’s largest hacking incidents.
KT, the second-biggest telecoms company in South Korea, said the hackers had stolen data, which include the names, phone numbers and residential registration numbers of its subscribers, for five months running since February and dealt the information to telemarketing companies.
“The number of …

Park Jung-geun was indicted by South Korean prosecutors on Tuesday for reposting messages from the Twitter account of the North Korean government.  Mr. Park faces seven years in jail if he is convicted.
 
Twenty-three year old Mr. Park, a photographer who specializes in photographing babies, claims that the posts were all satire and sarcasm, and that the government authorities failed to understand this. Mr. Park resent such posts as “Long Live Kim Jong-il!” and was later interrogated …

Data from the accounts of over 13 million gamers from South Korea were compromised by hackers, the South Korean government has revealed.
According to the Korea Communications Commission (KCC), more than 13 million subscribers of an online game developed by Nexon Korea Corp have been affected in the hacking.
KCC said that Nexon notified them on Friday that 13.2 million subscribers to its Maple Story game have been compromised.
Nexon reportedly discovered the hacking attack on the subscribers of …

Samsung will not try to block sales of its rival Apple’s new smartphone, the iPhone 4S, in South Korea.

Samsung reneges on earlier position as it will not seek a sales ban on the iPhone 4S in South Korea, a report says. Image: @JyonSalvador / Flickr (CC)

The news comes from major South Korean newspaper The Chosunilbo which released the report revealing the development on Monday.
Samsung was certain almost two months ago that it could get a sales ban on the iPhone 4S – which then was …

LG has unveiled its Optimus LTE HD phone in South Korea to go on sale Oct 5. Image: LGEPR / Flickr (CC)

LG has unveiled its newest smartphone of its Optimus line, the LG Optimus LTE HD, in South Korea on Monday.
The Optimus LTE HD, from its name alone, will support 4G LTE connectivity and will sport a 720p HD display.
Also officially known as the LU6200, the Optimus LTE HD is aimed squarely by LG at the Galaxy S II LTE smartphone recently unveiled by fellow South Korean tech giant and rival …

South Korea has the world’s fastest internet connections based on average download speed, a new study released on Tuesday reveals.

South Korea has topped a worldwide study about internet download speeds. Image: asirap / Flickr (CC)

According to the study done by Pando Networks, South Korea has the fastest average download speeds among all the countries in the world while the U.S. was only 26th in the rankings.
Pando Networks said that their study involved 20 million computers in 224 …

The iPhone 5 is still to arrive and yet Samsung has apparently already drawn up a legal move for it to block the sale of the next-generation Apple smartphone in South Korea when it is released.

Samsung is confident it will be successful in getting a sales ban on the upcoming iPhone 5 in South Korea using wireless technology patents it owns. Image: DailyM = Differentieel + JeeeM / Flickr (CC)

The news comes from Korea Times which says that “Sources closely involved with the thorny issue …

LG electronics said Friday that reports that it cut its staff for its overseas operations at its mobile division are untrue, a report from Reuters says.

LG has said that it has not cut jobs outside of South Korea as its mobile division struggles. Image: domatesefendi / Flickr (CC)

The swift denial came after a report from The Korea Economic Daily earlier on Friday that the South Korean electronics giant has cut its staff overseas for its mobile division.
The report said that the layoff of …