Coupang unveils $1.17 billion compensation plan over data breach

Seoul, Dec 29 E-commerce giant Coupang announced a compensation plan worth more than 1.68 trillion won ($1.17 billion) on Monday following a massive personal data breach.

The compensation plan comes a day after Coupang founder Kim Bom-suk issued his first public apology since the incident, which affected nearly two-thirds of South Korea's population, reports Yonhap news agency.

Under the plan, the U.S.-listed company will provide 50,000 won worth of discounts and coupons to each of 33.7 million customers, including paid Coupang Wow members, regular users and former customers who have closed their accounts, the company said in a press release.

Compensation payments will be made gradually starting Jan. 15, it added.

"Taking this incident as a turning point, Coupang will wholeheartedly embrace customer-centric principles and fulfill its responsibilities to the very end, transforming into a company that customers can trust," Coupang's interim Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Harold Rogers said in the release.

The per-person compensation consists of 5,000 won for Coupang's e-commerce platform, 5,000 won for food delivery service Coupang Eats, 20,000 won for Coupang's travel products and 20,000 won for R.LUX luxury beauty and fashion products.

Last week, Coupang said it had identified a former employee responsible for the data leak through forensic evidence, recovered the equipment used in the hacking and received a confession from the suspect.

The company claimed that data from only about 3,000 accounts was actually saved and later deleted by the suspect.

The government, however, has dismissed Coupang's findings as a "unilateral claim," noting that a joint public-private investigation into the incident has yet to release any conclusions.

On November 29, Coupang confirmed that the personal information of 33.7 million customer accounts had been exposed, far exceeding the 4,500 accounts initially reported to authorities on Nov. 20.

Given that active users of Coupang's product commerce division, including its delivery service, reached 24.7 million in the third quarter, the scale of the breach suggests that nearly the entire user base may have been affected.

The company said the compromised data included users' names, phone numbers, email addresses and delivery addresses.

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