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Welcome to Kakao

Thank you for using Kakao services. Kakao provides diverse Internet and mobile-based services (applications). The following comprehensive terms of service (the “Terms of Service”) are applicable to all Kakao services provided by Kakao Corp. (“Kakao”) based on your Kakao account (each a “Service” and, collectively, “Service”) in order to provide you with more accessible and user-friendly services. The Terms of Service will help you with your use of the Services, so please read them carefully.

Various Kakao Services are available to you.

Kakao offers many kinds of Services that you can enjoy on the Internet or through your mobile devices, such as a social networking service, bulletin board system service, online contents service, and location-based service. You may use Services by downloading a Kakao software application from your smartphone application store or by installing the Kakao program on your personal computer. As Kakao offers diverse number of Services, the content of Services may frequently change, and the details thereof will be notified to you separately for each Service. We ask for your understanding in this regard, and please feel free to view the detailed instructions for use of each Service that will be made available through the application store, the Q&A center for each Service, and the applicable guidelines and notifications.

Kakao hereby grants you a personal, worldwide, non-assignable, non-exclusive and royalty-free license necessary for your use of Services. However, please be reminded that Kakao does not grant you a right to use the Kakao trademarks, service marks, logos, branding or names.

In order to improve the level of Services, Kakao may update the software required for use of Services. Kakao may add important functionalities or remove insignificant functionalities through such software updates. Please update your software regularly so that you can enjoy Services to the fullest extent possible.

In order to provide you with a better service, Kakao may send you various notifications, messages and other advertising materials and information related to your use of Services by notifying you directly in the Services or by sending an email to you. If you encounter any errors in the system while using the Services, please contact the Kakao Customer Center.

If you choose to connect to a 4G/LTE network provided by your carrier when using Kakao Services, please note that you may be charged additional data fees by your carrier. You’ll be responsible for any additional data charges incurred when using Kakao Services. Please contact your carrier for further inquiries regarding your data plans.

You may use Kakao account.

Your Kakao account is a log-in account created based on your email address and password of your choice, which is needed for you to be able to use Services. A Kakao account may be mandatory for use of some Services. To begin the Kakao account creation process, you must consent to the Terms of Service, provide your email address, and register your password. Then, Kakao will go through the approval process. If needed, Kakao may approve your account by verifying your email address or telephone number. Of course, if you wish, you may also create a Kakao nickname.

Kakao may not approve of your account creation if: (i) Kakao deleted your Kakao account in the past, (ii) you have attempted to create a Kakao account using a third party’s name, email address or other personal information, or (iii) you fail to provide the required information or provide false information during the Kakao account creation process. Especially, if you are under 14 years of age, your parent or legal guardian’s consent must be obtained to create your Kakao account. If it is found that you have created your Kakao account in breach of the foregoing terms and conditions, Kakao may suspend your use of Services or delete your Kakao account immediately.

Special Note For Children in the United States: Our Services are not directed to children under the age of 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under age 13. If you are under 13, then please do not use Services. If we learn that we have collected personal information of a child under 13, we will delete such information.

Your Kakao account is personal to you and non-transferable, and you may not permit any third party to use your Kakao account. You are responsible for safeguarding the password that you use to access Services to prevent any improper use of your Kakao account without your consent. If you become aware that your Kakao account is being used by a third party without your consent, please contact the Kakao Customer Center, and Kakao will provide you with assistance to protect your Kakao account.

You may review and change your information using the setting menu in the Services. However, certain information, such as your Kakao account, telephone number and device identification number, required for the provision and management of Services may not be changed. If there are any changes to the information you provided at the time of joining the Services, please reflect such changes directly to Services or notify Kakao of such changes through the Kakao Customer Center by email.

Please pay particular attention to the following.

You may freely use Services, and we are happy to help you build a bridge to a wider world through the use of Services. However please do not forget that you may not use Services in any wrongful manner or purpose.

For example, you may not interfere with the provision of Services or access Services using a method other than the one provided and approved by Kakao. Furthermore, you may not collect, use or provide to others the information of other Service users, use Services for any profit-generating activity, transmit any information that is pornographic, infringe on any third party’s copyright or otherwise violate public order, laws or good morals. You may not copy, modify, distribute, sell, transfer, lease, provide as security or permit others to use any part of Services or software included in Services without Kakao’s consent. In addition, you may not reverse engineer, attempt to extract the software source code included in Services or copy, disassemble, reproduce or otherwise modify Services.

If you fail to comply with applicable law, the Terms of Service and/or other policies of Kakao, Kakao may conduct an investigation into the matter or suspend your use of Services either temporarily or permanently. Kakao has the right to destroy or store your personal information separately if your account has been inactive for the period specified in the relevant laws. Kakao will notify you via email or SMS before proceeding. Please note that this may result in the lack of required information and lead to the termination of the Terms of Service. Please refer to the Kakao Operation Policy for more information on your use of Services.

Kakao protects your personal information.

Safe handling of your personal information is very important to us. Kakao will use your personal information only within the purpose and scope for which your consent is given to us to ensure seamless provision of Services. Unless otherwise required by the relevant laws and regulations or consented by you, Kakao will never disclose your personal information to a third party. Please refer to the Kakao Privacy Policy for information on the efforts made by Kakao to protect your personal information.

Kakao protects the copyright of content.

Kakao respects your intellectual property rights. You may provide content such as photos, text, information, comments or proposals, by posting them on Services, and you retain all intellectual property rights in and to such content.

Kakao believes that your content has useful information and that it is very important to ensure that such content is accessed by legitimate means and process. If you post any content on Services, the content may be exposed to Kakao services, and you will be deemed to have granted to Kakao and its partners a worldwide and permanent license to use, store, copy, modify, publicly transmit, display and distribute such content within the required extent.
In this case, Kakao complies with copyrights laws, and you may at any time take actions to delete the concerned content or make it a private content through Kakao's Customer Service or using the administration function within Services if available. For the avoidance of doubt, the rights granted to Kakao and its partners under such license will be used only for the purposes of the operation, improvement and promotion of Services and the development of new Kakao services.

Some Services may offer ways to access and remove the content that you have provided to such Services. Also, for certain Services, there are settings that can limit the scope of Kakao’s use of the content submitted through such Services. You can find more information about how Kakao uses and stores your content in the Kakao Privacy Policy or you can contact the Q&A Center for each Service.

You should have acquired all legal rights necessary for you to be able to grant a license to Kakao to use the content you provided to Kakao, and you may not disclose or post any content that is pornographic or violates public order, laws or good morals.

If Kakao determines that the content you have provided violates relevant laws or Kakao’s policies, Kakao may remove, delete or refuse to post such content; however, Kakao does not have an obligation to review or edit any content. If you believe that your right has been infringed, you may get help from the Kakao Customer Center for the relevant Service.

Services may include content that is not owned by Kakao. In such case, the individual who has provided such content will solely be liable for such content. Your use of Services does not grant you any right to the content provided by other users. To use other users’ content made available through Services, you must separately obtain the permission from the owner thereof.

Kakao provides a better location-based service.

With an aim to provide more convenient and useful services to you, Kakao may include location-based service in Services. The location-based service of Kakao is a free service based on your location data received from a location information provider, which collects your location data from your mobile device. More specifically, such location-based service consists of: (i) a place-sharing service where you may share your current location or any particular location with other users or prepare postings related thereto; (ii) an information provision service through which you can search your local information or be provided with advertisement information using your current location; (iii) a content-sharing service whereby you may share your content with your friends using your location data that is recorded with your photos or other content or otherwise combined with such content; and (iv) a taxi call service whereby your current location is shared with the member taxi driver to call the taxi driver. Particularly, for a minor under the age of 14 who wishes to utilize location-based services that uses personal location data, as Kakao will use and provide such location data, parental or legal guardian’s prior consent is mandatory. If it is found that the location-based service was used without such consent, Kakao may immediately suspend or place appropriate restrictions on the use of the location-based services.

In connection with Services, you (including any legal guardian of minors under age 14) may withhold your consent or withdraw your consent, either partially or entirely, to the use and purpose of provision of your personal location data, the scope of the specific persons to whom your personal location data may be provided, or any part of the location-based service provided by Kakao. You may also request temporary suspension of your consent to the foregoing. Kakao keeps your personal location data and the information confirming the use and provision of the location data for a period of at least 6 months pursuant to the Act on the Protection, Use, Etc. of Location Information. In addition, when you entirely or partially withdraw your consent to the use of your personal location data, Kakao will promptly discard the relevant portion of your personal location data and the information confirming the use and provision of the location data for which your consent has been withdrawn.

You (including legal guardian of minors under age 14) may request access to or notification of the information confirming the use and provision of your location data, or the reasons, notification and details of your personal location data provided to a third party pursuant to relevant laws and regulations. If the relevant data contains an error, you may demand correction thereof. If Kakao provides your personal location data directly to a third party designated by you, Kakao will promptly notify you of the third party to whom your personal location data is provided, the date, time and the purpose of such provision through your smartphone or other device from which Kakao has collected your personal location data pursuant to relevant laws and regulations.

If the custodian of minors of 8 years old and under, person of incompetence or mentally disabled, among others, provides written consent for the use or provision of the personal location data, it will be deemed consent from such individual. In such case, the custodian may exercise all rights in regards to such personal location data.

To better protect your location data, Kakao has appointed a location information manager (Andy Kang, 1577-3321, privacy@kakao.com).

If a dispute arises between Kakao and you in connection with the location data, and if such dispute is not amicably settled, in accordance with Article 28 Section 2 of the Act on the Protection, Use, Etc. of Location Information, and Article 43 of the Personal Information Protection Act, you may submit a request for mediation to the Personal Information Dispute Mediation Committee.

Services may be suspended occasionally.

Kakao strives to provide Services 24 hours a day, 365 days a year without interruption. However, as a result of a regular or temporary inspection of the equipment for maintenance or repair or due to other unavoidable causes, Services may temporarily be suspended. In such case, we will provide a prior notice to you within the relevant Service. If Services are suspended due to causes not foreseen by Kakao, Kakao will notify you thereof immediately after Kakao determines the causes for the relevant suspension.

You may elect to deactivate your account.

If you wish not to use Services any longer, you may, at any time, request for the termination of the Terms of Service by using the menu provided in Services. In such case, Kakao will take actions accordingly in a swift manner as required under relevant laws and regulations.

Upon the termination of the Terms of Service, unless we are required to preserve your information under applicable law and/or the Kakao Privacy Policy, your information and any and all data provided by you, such as your postings and other content, will be deleted; provided, however, that, if your posting is scrapped by a third party or posted using another sharing function or if you have added comments to a third party’s posting, such posting or comment may not be deleted to the extent necessary to provide Services to the other users.

Furthermore, you may elect to terminate only certain Services among other Kakao Services. In such case, only the data related to the terminated Services will be deleted, and your Kakao account will not be deleted for your use of the remaining Services.

Warranty Disclaimer.

In providing Services, Kakao exercises reasonable skill and due care in helping you enjoy Services to their fullest extent possible.

To the extent permitted by applicable law, Kakao expressly disclaims any and all promises or warranties of any kind regarding matters not set forth in the Terms of Service. For example, Kakao disclaims all promises or warranties relating to the particular function or availability of content or service included in Services, and Services are provided on an “AS IS” basis.

Kakao will take responsibility for its negligence.

Kakao desires that you benefit from your use of Services, and if any damages result from Kakao’s negligence, Kakao will compensate you for such damage in accordance with applicable law.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, Kakao will not be liable for any (i) personal injury resulting from your access to or use of Services, (ii) damage resulting from unauthorized access to or use of the Kakao servers by a third party, (iii) damage resulting from any interruption or cessation of transmission to or from Services caused by a third party, (iv) damage resulting from transmission of bugs, viruses, adware, spyware, worms or other malicious code by any third party, (v) damage resulting from the omission or destruction of data transmitted, or (vi) damage incurred by you during the course of the use of Services by any third party without Kakao's fault, including, but not limited to, defamatory injury. Moreover, to the extent permitted by applicable law, Kakao will not be liable for lost profits, revenues or data, financial losses or any indirect, incidental, punitive, special, consequential or exemplary damages.

The Terms of Service are subject to change.

In order to reflect changes to applicable law or changes to Services, among other reasons, Kakao may revise the Terms of Service, the instructions for use of each Service through the Q&A Center, other applicable guidelines and notifications. In the event of a change to the Terms of Service, Kakao will post a notification thereof on the start-up page of the individual Service, and the revised Terms of Service will become effective 15 days after the posting of such notification.

However, if the revised Terms of Service may affect you adversely, Kakao will give you a reasonable 30 day prior notice thereof by sending you an email to the email address used for your Kakao account or via a Kakao Talk message or an alarm message.

Kakao will receive your comments on the revised Terms of Service for a period from the date of the posting of such notice of the proposed revision until the effective date of the revised Terms of Services. Your failure to provide your comments within such period will be deemed as your consent to the revised Terms of Service. Unfortunately, if you do not consent to the revised Terms of Service, Kakao will be unable to provide Services to you.

General

Your comments and suggestions are highly appreciated. You may, at any time, visit the Kakao Customer Center and leave your comments and suggestions. Kakao will send you various news and announcements by sending an email to the email address used for your Kakao account or by sending an electronic message. Announcements applicable to all users of Services will become effective after being posted on Service start-up page or Service bulletin board for at least 7 days.

The Terms of Service apply to the relationship between Kakao and you only, and no third party will be entitled to any benefits under the Terms of Service.

If you fail to comply with the Terms of Service, Kakao’s failure to exercise or enforce any right or provision of this Terms of Service right away will not be considered a waiver of such right or provision. If any provision of the Terms of Service is held to be invalid or unenforceable, such provision will have no effect on the remaining provisions of the Terms of Service.

This Terms of Service and Services are governed by the laws of the Republic of Korea (“Korea”).

Special Note For International Users: Kakao controls and operates Services from its headquarter in Korea. If you use Services outside Korea, you are responsible for following applicable local laws. By using our Services, you understand and agree that your information may be transferred to our facilities and those third parties with whom we share it as described in our Privacy Policy.

• Date of Announcement : July 1, 2016
• Date of Implementation : July 6, 2016

If you have any questions regarding Services (including the location-based service), please visit or contact the Kakao Customer Center (Address: 1F, Mirae Asset Venture Tower, 20, Pangyoyeok-ro 241 beon-gil, Bundang-gu, Seongnam-si, Gyeonggi-do, Korea; Tel.: 1577-3754; Link: https://cs.kakao.com/requests?locale=en&service=8).