South Korea warns Apple and Google about ‘abuse of market position’

The Korea Communications Commission, or KCC, has issued a warning to Google and Apple. The authority says that the tech giants are abusing their favorable market positions and is therefore threatening fines of up to 68 billion won (47 million euros).

The telecom watchdog states that Apple and Google are ‘forcing app developers to use certain payment methods and are unnecessarily slow in assessing apps’, writes Reuters. The KCC has informed the companies of the measures and will hold discussions within the organization about the amount of the fines. The regulator can decide to impose fines of up to 68 billion won, which is equivalent to 47.8 million euros. This would amount to 47.5 billion won (33 million euros) for Google and 20.5 billion (14 million euros) won for Apple, according to the KCC.

“What the KCC shared today is the ‘pre-announcement’. Once the final written decision is shared with us, we will carefully review it and see how we proceed,” Google said in a statement to Reuters. Apple told the news agency that it disagrees with the KCC and says it complies with the Telecommunications Business Act. According to this law, app stores cannot force software developers to use their payment systems. This change in law was adopted in 2021 and came into effect on March 15, 2022.

Update: Converted amounts added.