Jin Duck & Kyung Sik Kim Foundation
Korean American Women's International Network
Silicon Valley Korean American Federation

September 22, 2015

Google
Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman

Re: Request for meeting

Dear Mr. Schmidt,

Recently, three local community organizations joined forces in San Jose, California to petition your company, Google, to reinstate the name of our island, Dokdo, to your Google Maps.  Our mission is to promote greater awareness to people, not only locally but globally, of the fact that Dokdo is not a disputed island.  So far, we have collected nearly 110,000 petitions from all over the world, and 92 congressmen from Korea have joined our campaign as well.

Dokdo is the easternmost territory of Korea and situated only 54 miles to the southeast of the Ulleungdo island of Korea. It is 98 miles away from Japanese territory of Oki Island. We have historical records that date back to the sixth century asserting it as Korean territory while Japanese claims come from seventeenth century records.  The attached video explains further details regarding Dokdo. In short, Dokdo is a territory under South Korea's administrative control as stipulated in the South Korea-U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty.

Prior to 2012, Dokdo was the island’s name on Google Maps, but on October of 2012, the name was removed and replaced with Liancourt Rocks. Dokdo is a long-established part of South Korea's territory, so the new reference is unacceptable. It was noted by your company that the update was not made in response to any government request, but we believe that the decision was somewhat influenced by the political groups of Japan.

We'd like to respectfully request a meeting with you and your Google Maps team to discuss the issue pertaining to the change of this geographical name on Google Maps. We hope your busy schedule will allow you to meet with us.

Thank you very much for your consideration and we look forward to hearing from you soon.

Sincerely,

Jonathan H. Kim
Soon R. Kim
Kyung Y. Yi
Min H. Shin