Online shopping in South Korea will go Active-X free beginning in March.
 
The Ministry of Science, ICT, and Future Planning said Tuesday that it will introduce a simplified online payment system, in which people won’t need to go through a time-consuming authentication procedure on the Microsoft-developed program. 
 
Since being introduced to South Korea in 1999, the ActiveX plug-in has been required for online purchases of over 300-thousand won, but has long been criticized for excessively sacrificing the convenience of online shopping.
 
Currently, two of nine major local credit card issuers have been running an Active-X-free system for online purchases. The other seven companies are also planning to introduce a similar system this year.