Full article available at KoreaBANG
Translated from Korean
“Approximately 38 million people in Korea use the popular mobile instant messaging application KakaoTalk to talk with friends and family daily. As KakaoTalk widens its business scope from Kakao Music to Kakao game, it has been estimated that the number of users will hit 1 billion in 2015. However, the number of cyber crimes targeting KakaoTalk has also increased with the number of users. Some Korean users have started to delete KakaoTalk due to an invasion of privacy and a large amount of spam while others think they are overreacting.
A worker Y(34, female) has recently deleted ‘KakaoTalk’, a mobile messenger application. At first it was awkward for her because she has a habit of regularly checking Kakao, however she is getting used to it as time goes by. She feels liberated from the ‘katok’ sound in the early dawn and the late evening. A game invitation alarm made her upset but she couldn’t block that person, especially if he was someone at work. Now she is happy because she’s not bothered by all the alarms from department store and open market adverts every Friday morning.”