South Korea Threatens Google and Apple with Penalties for App Advertising

The telecommunications regulator of South Korea announced on Friday that Google and Apple, both owned by Alphabet Inc, have been found guilty of exploiting their dominant position in the app market. The regulator also cautioned that they could face fines amounting to a maximum of $50.5 million.

The Korean Communications Commission (KCC) said in a statement that the two tech giants forced app developers to use certain payment methods and caused an unreasonable delay in app review.

The KCC will notify companies of corrective measures and consider fines, the statement said.

“What KCC has shared today is an ‘advance notice,’ and we will carefully review and submit our response. Once the final written decision is shared with us, we will review it carefully to evaluate our next course of action,” Google said in a statement. for Reuters.

Apple also issued a statement saying, “We disagree with the conclusions reached by the KCC in its review report and believe that the changes we have made to the App Store are consistent with the Telecommunications Business Act. As we have always done, we will continue to engage with the KCC to share our views.”

In 2021, South Korea passed an amendment to the Telecommunication Business Act that prohibited app store operators from forcing software developers to use their payment systems.

The KCC said Google and Apple’s monitoring of certain payment methods and Apple’s “discriminatory charging of fees to domestic app developers” are likely to undermine the law’s purpose of promoting fair competition.

After consulting the companies, the regulator may decide to impose fines of up to 68 billion won ($50.47 million), including 47.5 billion won for Google and 20.5 billion won for Apple, the KCC said.

(1 dollar = 1,347,3200 won)

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