Microsoft monoculture persists in Korea!

As readers of this blog are well aware, I've been regularly following the topic of Microsoft's undue influence on web surfing and computing in South Korea, otherwise referred to widely as this nation's "Microsoft Monoculture."   My last post on this topic was in April of this year, but an article in the Joongang Daily this morning reminded me that the problem of over-reliance on outdated Microsoft software--specifically ActiveX--persists!  Ahn Cheol-soo, while he was campaigning for the presidency here earlier this year, made a campaign pledge to eliminate ActiveX. “ActiveX is irritating everyday life for the people of Korea,” he said in a speech, “I will lift ActiveX and that will be a crucial part of my campaign.” Now Ahn is out of the campaign, but ActiveX remains a big nuisance here in South Korea.
The Joongang Daily article has some interesting detail, including the above graphic (click to see a full-size version).  It reports that "According to a second-quarter survey of 200 public and private Web sites by the Korea Communications Commission, a top government agency overseeing IT policies, 84 percent, or 168 sites, were using ActiveX. The plugin had the largest usage for Web security - 42.2 percent for public sites and 39.7 percent for private sites. The next biggest use of ActiveX was for online shopping and personal verification."