US-based Amazon of South Korea forced to recover laptop from bottom of Chinese river in bizarre data privacy clampdown: report

South Korea’s government allegedly forced a US web retailer to carry out a bizarre and risky plot to recover a stolen laptop from the bottom of a river in China – part of a high-level data-privacy clampdown that US officials claim is the latest example of the country’s anti-American tech regulations run amok.A House Judiciary Committee report released on Wednesday detailed how Seattle-based Coupang – known as the “Amazon of South Korea” where it does 90% of its business – believed it had no choice but to hire scuba divers for the James Bond-style caper as top South Korean regulators pressed for an elaborate probe of a November data breach that affected 33 million customers.Indeed, while South Korea’s National Intelligence Service denied any involvement, Coupang compiled a host of evidence to the contrary — including messages from a senior government aide affirming that South Korea’s president had been briefed on the operation.The “highest levels of the South Korean government, including President Lee Jau-myung himself, knew that the NIS had been closely instructing Coupang on the recovery operation and that Coupang acted in response to these directives,” the report said.Coupang faced 40 investigations from 11 different South Korean agencies, threats of travel bans for its executives and potential fines of up to 10% of its global revenue, the report said.On June 11, South Korea’s Personal Information Protection Commission fined Coupang $410 million — nearly twice its profit last year — after finding that the company had illegally harvested customer data.The December mission focused on a rogue Coupang employee, a Chinese national who had allegedly extracted the personal data of 3,000 customers — a tiny fraction of the 33 million who were caught in a massive data breach at the company reported on Nov.

27 – and fled to Shanghai, according to the report.Coupang contacted the rogue employee, who confessed and agreed to turn over several...