A netizen posted a message titled, "How about calling Naver's service 'Ad-iN' instead of 'Jisik-iN'?" criticizing 'Jisik-iN' service, which has degenerated into advertising service.

'Jisik-iN' (meaning "people with knowledge" in Korean), which is originally a Q&A service provided by Naver, has changed into rather an advertising service, arousing mistrust among netizens.

On September 23, Choi, a netizen who often provided answers to other netizens on the service, said, "Jisik-iN service, which was originally a knowledge sharing service among internet users by using collective intelligence, is now full of ads and manipulation. Jisik-iN service has been so out of its real function for long and most of netizens no longer trust the service."

If you ask a question on Jisik-iN with a keyword "institute", you will likely see a post seemingly asked by a student and answered by another netizen promoting certain private institute. At the end of the answering post, you will see a link to the institute. The post is highly likely an advertisement made by the institute itself.

A netizen nicknamed "nymo***" said, "I looked up Jisik-iN to find a TOEFL institute, but I found out that a certain institute made a questioning and answering post by its own. These days, I hardly find a questioning post without any promotional answering posts."

Some netizens insisted that the service should be regulated and managed by the government.

A netizen nicknamed "koh8****" said, "Those people won't stop providing advertisements. The government should punish them and the illegally earned funds should be sent to the public purse."

Most of the posts placed on top of the search are made by advertisers and agencies. Illegal nickname deals are rampant as well.

Recently, some advertising agencies randomly send text messages saying that they will deposit 10 million won for borrowing your Naver nickname.

Lee Hae-jin, the founder of Naver Corporation (formerly NHN Corporation), has been leading Naver's core business services including "Jisik-iN" and "Newscast". Naver began dominating the portal market beating other portals like Daum and Yahoo since 2002 as it launched its "Jisik-iN" service and became extremely popular among internet users.

A questioning and answering post presumably made by an advertiser, introducing a certain private institute in detail.