The Parliamentary Committee of South Korea has approved a bill, Partial amendment to the Telecommunications Business Act (alternative) (Chairman of Science and Technology Information Broadcasting and Communication), on August 31, 2021.
Key highlights of the Bill are:
- The Bill shall ban major app store operators like Google and Apple, from requiring developers to only use their payment systems to process the sale of digital products and services.
- The Bill is intended to promote fair competition among participants in the app market industry by barring them.
- The policies of Apple and Google policies usually require developers to pay the tech giants a commission as high as 30% of every transaction. Now, as per the current Bill approved by the Parliament, the developers will be able to avoid paying commission to major app store operators like Google and Apple by directing users to pay via alternate platforms.
- The law also gives the South Korean government the power to mediate disputes regarding payment, cancellations and refunds in the app market.
The Bill awaits Presidential assent. Once passed, South Korea will be the first country to take a legislative action in curbing the Apple and Google’s app store charges.
*Tanvi Singh, Editorial Assistant has reported this brief.