Voluntary Agency Network of Korea
Template:Korean name VANK or Voluntary Agency Network of Korea is a non-governmental South Korean organization made up of volunteers. It states that its purpose is to "enhanc[e] the image of Korea on the road." VANK links Korean teenagers with teenagers around the world to benefit both by cultural and historical enrichment through penpals and chatting.
VANK also actively attempts to correct differed historical interpretations, from the Korean perspective, on the Internet. VANK primarily sends e-mails to webmasters who are in charge of websites that contain, in their opinion, distorted information about Korea.
On August 18, 2005, Google Earth's name for Sea of Japan was changed to the name East Sea being displayed first with Sea of Japan in parenthesis, where formerly the opposite had been the case. This resulted in Japanese 2channel users attacking the web server of VANK, upon which this incident was suspected, through posting large volumes of messages containing insults about Korea and VANK's attempts. [1]
However, it was originally proposed by someone in Google Group Korea, and whether the user was related to VANK is unknown. [2] As of 2005, Google Earth displays both East Sea and Sea of Japan as equal names.