By Kim Tae-gyu
Staff Reporter


Can ``Big Brother’’ monitor all of cyberspace?

That question was raised as Professor Jo Jung-yul of Korea’s Sookmyung Women’s University Wednesday unveiled new management software, titled ``Merry X-MAS,’’ that gathers all data on the Internet related to a certain word.

The new program, short for Extraordinary Marketing PR Advanced System, combs through bulletin boards on various Web sites, blogs, news sites and community sites for the selected word.

The software demonstrates exposure of the word searched on the Internet, its preference, main topics related to it and all rumors, thus showing netizens’ interest and fondness for the word.

``Up until now, search engines just showed a raft of results for the search. But X-MAS adds more value with analysis and presentation,’’ the 37-year-old Jo said.

He added that politicians or entertainers can use the program to check their reputation while companies also can use the software to learn about the popularity of their products.

``Politicians and entertainers will be able to get the opinions of Internet users on a real time basis. They can also counter vicious rumors about themselves as soon as they appear in the virtual world,’’ Jo said.

However, experts raise concerns that the sophisticated program can be misused to collect private data en masse since the process is conducted without the consent of those who provide information.

In response, Jo claimed such worries are overblown as X-MAS does not specify sources of information and netizens can prevent their blogs or personal sites from being open to the search.

But Jo admitted a Big Brother copycat could appear, trying to use X-MAS to keep an eye on everything that is happening on the Internet.

``Technically, it is possible for someone to upgrade this program to gain details on information providers. Actually we did not recognize such a risk. We will attempt to find a measure to prevent misuse of our system,’’ Jo said.

X-MAS is being sold by GIGO Partners, a co-developer of the program. The price ranges from tens of millions of won to hundreds of millions of won, depending on solutions and the package.

voc200@koreatimes.co.kr