South Korea is potentially on its way to tweaking its Telecommunications Business Act to stop Apple and Google from taking a cut of in-app purchases after a bill was approved by a committee of its National Assembly. The bill was put to a vote on Wednesday by the country’s legislation and judiciary committee, but it still has to go through a final vote in parliament, pencilled in for Monday.
If it does pass, the tweak to the Act will mean that companies with dominant market positions like Apple and Google will not be allowed to require software developers on their platforms to choose their respective app store’s payment systems for users to download paid for apps or make in-app purchases.
The move comes after Google clarified to Korean devs in September last year that they would be required to “use the Google Play payment system when offering in-app purchases of digital goods and pay a certain percentage of the purchase amount as a fee.” In a conciliatory tone, it added that the policy was “only relevant for less than 3 per cent of Google Play app developers who… charge users for paid downloads or sell digital goods within the app. Google Play believes that this policy is fair.”
A senior director of public policy at Google yesterday told Reuters that “the rushed process hasn’t allowed for enough analysis of the negative impact of this legislation on Korean consumers and app developers.” Other critics have claimed the move by legislators in Korea as with the other antitrust moves around the globe – may have impact on bilateral agreements it has with the States. At any rate, devs in Korea and elsewhere will be listening closely on Monday for the rattle of the key to consumers’ online wallets.
