On March 8, ZFZJ.CN the State Council of South Korea updated the details of the Telecommunications Services Act to specifically limit the violations of app stores and stipulate the relevant fines.
The Telecom Business Act aims to prevent Apple and Google from forcing developers to sell apps through the App Store and the consequent commission extraction, the purpose of which is to prevent the mandatory exclusivity of in-app payment systems and to restrict store operators from unreasonably delaying or deleting apps.
It is reported that in August 2021, the South Korean government voted to approve the Telecom Business Law, thus affecting Apple and Google's control of their respective app stores for the first time in the world.
On March 8, South Korea's parliament finally decided on the rules that Apple and Google must follow at home.
In the details of the updated regulations, the violations include refusing or delaying the review of registration and updates of app mobile content; refusing, delaying, stopping or restricting app developers from using the app market; and taking unreasonable discrimination against apps that use third-party payment methods, such as restricting apps in advertising, fees, search, etc.
HanSang-hyuk, chairman of South Korea's telecommunications regulator KCC, said: "In order to prevent indirect circumvention of regulation, prohibited acts, types and standards have been formulated as strictly as possible within the scope of legal authorization."
The updated regulations require that if an app store enforces the use of a payment method, the relevant fine will reach 2% of sales. The new rules and regulations will be officially implemented on March 15.
It is reported that most of the software of merchants in the Apple App Store will force users to pay using Apple's own payment system. Apple will take a 15%-30% commission from it, which is what everyone calls "apple tax".
In recent years, the Dutch Consumer and Markets Authority has been investigating whether Apple has abused its dominant market position, and the Dutch dating software developer has repeatedly filed lawsuits against Apple to ask regulators to investigate the monopoly of Apple's app store payment system.
Not long ago, Apple was fined 5 million euros in the Netherlands for the third consecutive week because its app store still failed to open a third-party payment system for dating apps in accordance with the requirements of dutch regulators, with a cumulative fine of hundreds of millions of yuan.
Previously, the topic of Apple being fined 100 million yuan for three consecutive weeks also rushed to the hot search and was concerned by the world.
Earlier this year, Apple announced that it would allow a third-party payment option for an in-app purchase of a Dutch app to comply with Dutch government requirements. This is an important change for Apple, which has always emphasized the closed nature of the system.
However, apple also announced that it would not be able to help solve problems such as payments or refunds that occurred outside of Apple's system, on the grounds that Apple did not have direct access to the relevant information.