TVING Begins Accepting Compensation Applications for Personal-Information Breach Today—Users Must Apply Themselves

[Financial News] TVING will begin accepting compensation applications on the 7th from users affected by the personal-information breach. Compensation will not be provided automatically, so users must apply themselves.
Members who were notified that they were among those affected by the TVING personal-information breach can apply for compensation from 10 a.m. today through the 30th.
Users can check whether they are eligible by logging in to the TVING website or mobile app and visiting the compensation application page under the “MY” menu.
Applicants must complete identity verification on the page before submitting their applications. The customer service center will not accept compensation applications.
The compensation package consists of a one-year free subscription to DB Insurance’s Cyber Hacking and Phishing Protection Insurance, three months of premium viewing features, 50 TVING points, and entertainment benefits. TVING estimated the perceived value of the full package, including the insurance, at approximately 20,000 won per person.
The Cyber Hacking and Phishing Protection Insurance covers losses from cyber financial fraud, online shopping-mall fraud, and person-to-person transaction fraud, up to 3 million won per person. The insurance coverage period runs from the 6th of next month through October 5 of next year.
The premium viewing features support up to 4K picture quality, 400 content downloads, and simultaneous viewing on up to four devices for three months.
TVING is not providing the premium subscription itself, which costs 17,000 won per month. Users of the ad-supported Standard plan, priced at 5,500 won per month, the Basic plan, priced at 9,500 won, or the Standard plan, priced at 13,500 won, can continue watching content available under their current plans as before, while upgrading only their picture quality, download limit, and number of simultaneous viewers to premium levels. Ad-supported Standard members will still have to watch advertisements even after receiving the premium viewing features.
The 50 TVING points can be used to pay for individually purchased content and are worth 5,000 won. Members who, as of the 30th of this month, cannot receive the premium viewing features because they do not have a premium subscription will receive an additional 50 TVING points. In effect, they will receive a total of 100 points, worth 10,000 won.
The entertainment benefit allows users to choose between a one-month Wavve ad-supported Standard subscription, worth 5,500 won, and a 5,000-won discount coupon for one of three CJ CGV combo packages.
Compensation will be distributed sequentially beginning at 10 a.m. on the 6th of next month. Once distribution is complete, a notification text message will be sent to the mobile phone number registered to the member’s account.
Compensation can be claimed only once per account. Once an application is submitted, the selected compensation items cannot be changed. The TVING points, premium viewing features, and CJ CGV discount coupon can be used through December 31 and will automatically expire afterward. The Wavve subscription coupon must also be registered by December 31 and can be used for one month from the date of registration.
Members who have closed their accounts are also eligible for compensation. However, they must rejoin TVING to access the compensation application page and complete identity verification.
TVING explained that rejoining is unavoidable for identity verification and information matching. Former members can rejoin for free using the account they previously used, and they can apply for compensation without purchasing a paid subscription.
The “premium viewing features” compensation upgrades the picture quality, download limit, and number of simultaneous viewers available under an existing subscription. Former members who only rejoin do not have an active content subscription, so they cannot watch content with this feature alone. To actually use the benefit, they must separately subscribe to one of the ad-supported Standard, Basic, or Standard plans.
Meanwhile, TVING suffered a breach in May that exposed personal information from a total of 39.54 million accounts, including 22.06 million active accounts, 8.5 million dormant accounts, 8.87 million closed accounts, and 110,000 test accounts. This means that information from every account held by TVING was exposed.
The exposed information included names, dates of birth, mobile phone numbers, email addresses, connecting information (CI), and payment histories.
TVING CEO Julie Choi said, "We deeply regret this incident and will fundamentally rebuild our entire information-security system," adding, "We will make information protection our platform’s most important responsibility and competitive strength, and do our utmost to restore customer trust."
[email protected] An Ga-eul Reporter