Major Korean websites have been ordered to tighten up privacy policies and show more respect for the copyright of user-created content.

The new rules come amid a revamp of internet regulations which may also include tough new penalties for online libel.

Reports in the Korea Herald suggest that there have already been 308,000 individual cases in which personal information was leaked during 2008.

Internet service provider Hanaro Telecom was accused of selling its entire customer database to more than 1,000 telemarketing companies.

The Korean Fair Trade Commission said in a statement that web portals will need to seek users' permission if they want to reuse copyrighted material created by those users.

In related news, Korean justice minister Kim Kyung-han has announced plans to introduce tougher laws to combat online libel.

"Online defamatory action, dissemination of false information and menacing calls for businesses not to run ads in some newspapers have reached a perilous level, and subsequent damage is at a very serious scale," Kim said in comments reported by the Korea Herald.

"We need special measures to redress such illicit acts and disorder in cyber-space, and will seriously consider ways to punish acts of undermining the public interest and social order by maliciously spreading false information on the internet."

Kim hinted that laws would be introduced specifically to identify online libel as a criminal act.