

No, it has no intentions to force credit-card firms to support the system. The FSS, remaining lukewarm in endorsing non-Microsoft methods, has been conveniently coy on the Aladin issue. ''Credit-card companies have their own choice of authentication software, which happens to be developed by their subsidiaries, so there probably was a clash of interest there.'' Apparently, FSS approval doesn't mean much,'' said the official. ''There is absolutely no reason why the easy and secure payment methods used by global e-commerce giants like Amazon and eBay should be banned from a Korean site. In reality, it would be challenging to find payment methods that are less secure than the ones relying on Active-X, which has been blamed for making it easy for viruses to be downloaded without the user understanding what's happening.Īn official at Pay Gate, which had developed the payment system Aladin just ditched, argued that the credit-card companies were worried about displeasing financial authorities, who are religiously stressing the security benefits of the Microsoft monoculture despite the evidence mounting against it.

In blocking their customers from purchasing on Aladin, the credit card firms questioned the safety of the alternative payment system, despite it being approved by the Financial Supervisory Service's (FSS) certification management committee.

Three months later, Aladin confirms that it has quietly killed the service after experiencing a crippling boycott from major credit card companies Hyundai Card, Samsung Card and BC Card. This was welcomed by users of non-Microsoft browsers and owners of Apple computers, who frequently experience their devices reduced to a fashion statement. It was in June when Aladin introduced a new payment method that enabled customers to purchase products without downloading the dreaded Active-X tools, which function only on Microsoft's Internet Explorer Web browsers. Aladin (an online book retailer, was the latest to find this ring as too hard to break.
ALADIN CO KR SOFTWARE
There has been deafening calls for changes, but that would require severing an odd and murky union between policymakers, finance companies and security software developers, which have profited by extending the country's computer problems instead of improving them. Regressive government regulations on encrypted communication like electronic commerce, online banking and e-government services have left the country's computing experience stuck in the days when PCs looked like Styrofoam boxes and women fashionably wore purple lipstick.

Here's an interesting thing that's happening in South Korea, a technology-obsessed nation fascinated with e-this and e-that. Online book retailer Aladin fails in attempt to allow payment on non-Microsoft browsers Although Korea's Microsoft monoculture in Web browsers and computer operating systems has been blamed for a shaky security environment, efforts to introduce diversity in online encryption methods have hit a wall of resistance formed by financial regulators, credit-card firms and security software makers.
