South Korea Passes Bill That Forces Apple and Google to Allow Third Party Payment Systems

South Korea's National Assembly has passed a bill that forces Apple and Google to allow app developers to use third party payment systems, reports the WSJ. The bill becomes law once signed by President Moon Jae-in, whose party endorsed the legislation.

The law amends South Korea’s Telecommunications Business Act to prevent large app-market operators from requiring the use of their in-app purchasing systems. It also bans operators from unreasonably delaying the approval of apps or deleting them from the marketplace—provisions meant to head off retaliation against app makers.

The Korea Communications Commission will be able to fine companies up to 3% of their revenue in the country if they don't comply.


The bill, nicknamed the 'Google power-abuse-prevention law', has been welcomed by groups representing South Korea's internet-technology companies and startups, local developers and app makers.

“This is a significant step forward for the creation of a fairer app ecosystem,” said Kwon Se-hwa, general manager at the Korea Internet Corporations Association.

It's unclear how Apple will respond when the bill becomes law. In court, Apple CEO Tim Cook has said that Apple would still try to extract its commission from developers...

"It would wind up where customers would then have to fill in their credit cards for all of these different apps, so it would be a huge convenience issue, but also the fraud issues would go up..."


"Also, we would have to come up with an alternate way of collecting our commission. We would then have to figure out how to track what's going on and invoice it and then chase the developers, it seems like a process that doesn't need to exist".

More details in the full report...

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