On July 29, NHN CEO Kim Sang-Hun announced six ways for mutual growth with local ventures during NHN's press conference at the Press Center, in Seoul.

On July 29, NHN announced its plans to ensure mutual growth with venture startups but continues to receive criticism for its shallow plans being aware of public and political criticism.

NHN CEO Kim Sang-Hun held a press conference at the Press Center and announced a set of measures to ensure mutual growth with venture startups. The measures are 1) forming a consultative group for mutual growth of Naver service, 2) introducing a service impact assessment and standard contract system, 3) raising fund of 100 billion won ($90 million) to support venture startups and cultural content providers, 4) avoiding confusion of ad and information through improvement of search ad display, 5) blocking illegal harmful information, and 6) supporting for overseas expansion of cultural contents such as applications and webtoons through messenger 'LINE'.

For the conference, NHN invited Korea Venture Business Association, Korea Mobile Internet Business Association and related organizations in an attempt to calm controversy under the theme of 'mutual growth', but its action received a cold response from the industry.

An internet venture official said, "Although a large company with 13 trillion won market cap belatedly invests on what other internet companies have been investing, Naver's monopolistic ecosystem won't change as long as Naver continues to introduce similar services as other ventures'. A consultative group should be formed to listen to what local ventures really want."

A representative from a mobile application provider said, "Naver announced its plan to raise 100 billion won ($90 million) worth fund that will support venture startups but this kind of investment is a typical example of what other companies do and it is irrelevant to its extension mode like 'octopus tentacles'. It can be seen as if they are trying to show their effort for mutual growth and move on the matter without solving the main problem."

The rep pointed out, "Active measures for mutual growth such as restraining from copying the existing services of local ventures, or merging promising ventures will substantially help the venture industry."

Nam Min-Woo, the chairman of Korea Venture Business Association, said, "When I meet young app developers these days, they blame Naver saying that they can't put up with Naver any longer. The third party like Korea Venture Business Association will come forward to create a fair compromise between Naver and venture companies."