‘Search WWW’ Explores Impact of Fabricating Search Results

“Search WWW” is a 2019 K-drama series, with 16 episodes, and categorized as Romance, Comedy (Rom-Com), and Melodrama.  It addresses a very serious and relevant technology topic: search engine manipulation. This Korean drama is available to watch for free on several streaming platforms.

♦ If Search Terms Are Deleted, the Search Engine is Useless!

In “Search WWW”, Unicon is a top web portal company, and Bae Ta-Mi, one of its employees has been called to testify before political officials. The company has been accused of manipulating or fabricating its search rankings to favor a presidential candidate. Was it true? According to the witness who testified: YES!!!

Wait! Did Bae Ta-Mi say “Yes!!”?? Uh oh! That’s not good. How did it happen?

The scene switches and takes you back several months before to review events that led up to the public hearing.  Bae Ta-Mi wanted so badly to work for Unicon that she interviewed several times. She just wouldn’t give up. So finally they hired her. She worked very closely with Song Ka-Kyung. They were friends as well as fellow professionals.

In the beginning, they were both very idealistic and believed in the objectivity of the Internet. They believed Unicon was an important tool to be made available to the world for information, education, entertainment, etc. The work they did together at Unicon was for the good of the people and would make the world a better place.

Bae Ta-Mi truly believed this. But somewhere along the line, Song Ka-Kyung went astray. She lost her way, and Bae Ta-Mi lost her job. The testimony she gave showed Unicon in a bad light and the executives were not too happy about what she did.

But Bae Ta-Mi, although unemployed, had a clear conscience, was unrepentant, and had no regrets. It wasn’t too long before Unicon’s competitor, Barro, offered her a job. She accepted the job offer and came on board with the same idealistic beliefs she had when she worked at Unicon.

It was her hard work that helped Unicon to become the Number One web portal. She planned to work just as hard at Barro and make them the Number one portal.

Cha Hyun was already working at Barro when Bae Ta-Mi was hired. She did not appreciate that she had to work as a subordinate to a newcomer, who was also someone she never liked personally or professionally anyway! Cha Hyun and Song Ka-Kyung were close friends. It was not unreasonable for Bae Ta-Mi to suspect Cha Hyun of leaking information about her work at Barro.

But even if Cha Hyun did not leak information, the folks at Unicon had no intentions of letting Bae Ta-Mi walk off into the sunset. Oh no! Unicon kept tabs on her and did everything they could to try to thwart all of her efforts at Barro. The folks are Unicon were so malicious they even went after a guy she dated casually.

Park Mo-Gun wrote music for video games and was the music director in the gaming division. Unicon fired him just because they knew that he knew Bae Ta-Mi. Bae Ta-Mi and Park Mo-Gun met in a cafe. He beat her playing a video game because it seemed like that was the only way to get her attention. He wanted to pursue a relationship but she was unwilling.

Bae Ta-Mi was strongly attracted to him but resisted the temptation by making up excuses.

• One excuse was that there was an age gap, i.e. she was 10 years older than him. Surely their mindsets and outlook on life were completely different. The gap was too big to ignore.
• The other excuse was that she was under pressure to produce results at Barro and she simply did not have time to become involved with anyone.

Those excuses did not work with Park Mo-Gun as he was determined. Even though she resisted, he persisted.

“Search WWW” involves romance and some comedy, but the gravity of manipulating search results can not be overlooked, understated, or underestimated. Portal users should be confident that the search results are objective and accurate no matter what they are searching for.

If the search results expose that a presidential candidate was soliciting underage girls for prostitution … those results should not be manipulated, buried on page 2000 of the results, or completely erased. Don’t you agree?

Main Characters:

• Bae Ta-Mi (played by Im Soo-Jung)
• Cha Hyun (played by Lee Da-Hee, “L.U.C.A.: The Beginning”, “Island”)
• Song Ka-Kyung (played by Jeon Hye-Jin, “Hunt”, “Stranger 2”)
• Park Mo-Gun (played by Jang Ki-Yong)

Where to Watch

Viewership and Rating:

• IMDb: 7.8 out of 10 stars
• My Drama List: 8.3 out of 10 stars
• Public reviews shared via Google: 4.8 out of 5 stars
• Viki viewers rated this series 9.3 out of 10 stars

My personal rating is 9 out of 10 stars.

I gave “Search WWW”, one star for the soundtrack, and the remaining 8 stars were for the relevancy of the storyline to today’s digital world.

In the USA, when Trump was a presidential candidate, he accused Google of manipulating the search results related to him. Google insisted that it was not their fault that the public users associated and linked certain “search terms” with his name. If the results showed that people searched for “porn star” and “Trump”, that’s not their fault!

I understand Google’s point of view. They wrote the program for their search engine. But they don’t tell users what words to put in the search box. If the statistics they collect show what people are searching for and they report those statistics without manipulating them, why should anybody complain? The results may be favorable or unfavorable, but the results can not be “falsified”.

That was the point the scriptwriters were trying to make in “Search WWW” and they made it.

LINKS OF INTEREST:

• “Search: WWW” Ratings Soar To All-Time High For Finale | Soompi
• Review: Search: WWW | The Fangirl Verdict (“Thoughtfully written, solidly directed, and brimming with consummate performances by the cast,…”)
• [REVIEW] Drama breaks the tradition and puts women at the center: In ‘Search: WWW,’ the ladies take the lead, without making sacrifices | Korea JoongAng Daily

TRAILERS/TEASERS:

Viki Global TV. “SEARCH: WWW – OFFICIAL TRAILER 2 | Jang Ki Yong, Im Soo Jung, Lee Da Hee, Jeon Hye Jin.” YouTube Video. YouTube, June 3, 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lrNofGJdjk.‌