Coupang and the rise of technological feudalism

Home > Opinion > Columns

Coupang and the rise of technological feudalism

Published: 09 Dec. 2025, 00:03

Audio report: written by reporters, read by AI

Park Su-ryon

The author is the deputy editor of Content Division Three and the head of Corporate Research at the JoongAng Ilbo.

For many Korean consumers, the past 10 days have felt like an insult. A former Coupang employee leaked the personal information of 33.7 million users over a five-month period. The company that treats purchase and behavioral data as a prized asset for recommending Rocket Delivery products had no idea that basic personal details — addresses, names, phone numbers — were slipping out unchecked.

The Coupang logo is seen on a delivery truck at the firm's logistics center in Seoul on Nov. 5. [YONHAP]

Coupang's founder Kim Bom-suk, also known as Bom Kim, once said he wanted to create a service that made Koreans wonder how they had ever lived without it. In a narrow sense, he succeeded. Yet, the mood among consumers is sour. Even after a massive security breach, the company insisted it was a “disclosure,” not a leak, and its founder did not offer a simple apology. That silence reflects a confidence born of dominance in daily life.

The same mindset was evident last year when Coupang was fined 160 billion won ($109 million) by the Fair Trade Commission for manipulating product reviews. The company responded by warning that if the commission prohibited the recommendation system for Rocket Delivery goods, it would no longer be able to maintain the service at current levels. The implication sounded like pressure rather than explanation.

Park Dae-jun, CEO of Coupang, attends a parliamentary questioning session on the company’s personal data leak at the National Assembly’s Science, ICT and Broadcasting Committee in Yeouido, Seoul, on Dec. 2. [YONHAP]

Coupang has long framed this posture as “rationality.” According to the Coupang research series from The JoongAng Plus, Coupang’s executives use “correctness” as their primary decision criterion. But this is not correctness in relation to fairness or justice. It is a certain capitalist notion of correctness — seeking the most rational, most efficient outcome. Efficiency is not inherently problematic for a corporation, but Coupang’s reluctance to accept responsibility or to apologize fuels public resentment.

Even so, the Korean market remains unusually favorable for an American-style tech company like Coupang. Cultural preferences for speed, combined with a compact geography that makes logistics highly efficient, create ideal conditions. Regulations restricting early-morning and weekend operations at large discount stores have remained unchanged for more than a decade. In a market where competition is blunted, a company has less reason to fear consumer dissatisfaction.

No country seems to value personal information as cheaply as Korea. Coupang almost certainly reviewed the precedents. Before this incident, the worst data breach occurred in 2014, when KB Kookmin Card, Lotte Card and NH Nonghyup Bank lost the names, resident registration numbers, home addresses and card numbers of 100 million customers.

Yet, the Supreme Court imposed fines of only 10 to 15 million won per company. In a class-action suit, judges ruled that consumers had suffered no financial damage and ordered companies to pay only 100,000 won per person as emotional compensation. The total came to around 26 billion won. In similar lawsuits that followed, compensation again hovered at 100,000 won per person. Losses caused by the sale of stolen data to illegal loan sharks fell squarely on consumers.

That case, too, was caused by human error. A subcontractor demanded customer data be transferred to a USB stick, and the companies handed over unencrypted original files without hesitation. Yet under Korean law, even this careless handling of resident registration numbers and names was permissible. Their legal value, after all, was estimated at only about 100,000 won per person.

In a market where corporate risk is this low, repeat offenses are nearly unavoidable. Lotte Card suffered another breach exactly 10 years later. Government and parliamentary inaction suggests that even larger incidents could lie ahead. When 44.5 billion won in cryptocurrency was stolen from the Upbit exchange in a 54-minute hack on Oct. 27, the law on virtual asset user protection offered no grounds for holding the exchange accountable. In a society forced to rely on the goodwill of tech companies, consumers can quickly become victims.

Despite their anger, many users say they cannot bring themselves to leave Coupang. The question is whether Koreans are becoming “data serfs.” In medieval Europe, serfs lived under the control of a feudal lord, providing labor or payment in exchange for the right to cultivate land. Today, consumers devote time and money to platforms like Coupang and surrender data in return for fast delivery. Once symbols of creativity, innovation and entrepreneurship, Big Tech firms have become markers of “technological feudalism,” a term used by Cédric Durand in "How Silicon Valley Unleashed Techno-feudalism" (2020), capturing how they seek monopoly power and encroach upon public space.

Coupang founder and CEO Bom Kim [COUPANG]

The age of artificial intelligence may deepen this trend. Other AI companies covet the same status Coupang holds: becoming a service people believe they cannot live without. To maintain that position, they collect and exploit user data for training models and improving services.

Korea now faces a choice. Will breaches continue to provoke anger briefly before fading without institutional reform? If these companies cannot be compelled to change, consumers risk descending not merely into digital serfdom but into AI-era servitude.

This article was originally written in Korean and translated by a bilingual reporter with the help of generative AI tools. It was then edited by a native English-speaking editor. All AI-assisted translations are reviewed and refined by our newsroom.