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Telegram, which advertises its app with the
tagline "taking back our right to privacy", does not have any
servers in South Korea, where prosecutors last month launched an
cyber monitoring campaign after complaints by President Park
Geun-hye.
The authorities did not give specific details of the
surveillance plan, but it spooked users of the dominant app
KakaoTalk, operated by Daum Communications Corp, and triggered a
rush to find alternatives.
Market research firm Ranky.com said KakaoTalk had in the last
week lost 400,000 users, or about 2 percent, of its 35 million
or so customers in South Korea. During the same period, Telegram
was downloaded by one million Koreans.
On Tuesday, Daum sought to reassure clients, saying it had not
been asked for real-time data screening by the authorities and
that KakaoTalk is not under surveillance. It said, however, it
would not be able to reject a request from the prosecutors. Last
week, the company also said it would take several measures to
protect user data.
Before launching its Korean version, Telegram had played up its
security features.
Earlier this week, it told South Koreans on its Twitter feed:
"Your dialogue records will not be open and secret conversations
will not leave any trace on the server. Our official apps
guarantee the best security."
"Telegram thinks that private information and dialogue should be
safe from government officials, work supervisors, advertisement
firms and etc," it added.
(Editing by Tony Munroe and Miral Fahmy)
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