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The Daum is a popular web portal in South Korea, with its rival Naver. Daum offers many Internet services to web users, including a popular free web-based e-mail, messaging service, forums, shopping and news.
The popularity of Daum is a reflection of the high level of internet use in South Korea. The country has the highest level of broadband
users, and one of the most widespread levels of computer and Internet access.
The popularity of Daum stems from the range of services it offers, but also from the fact that it was the first Korean web portal of significant size. Its popularity started when it merged with the then most popular e-mail service, daum.net or hanmail.net. After the merging, Daum started the forum service DaumCafe which brought its firm status in the market. The term cafe is now used as the synonym for "Internet forum" in Korean.
On August 2, 2004 Daum announced the purchase of Lycos for $95.4 million, and closed the transaction on October 6
