[금융경제신문=전진홍 기자] It has been confirmed that the Fair Trade Commission has sent a review report to Google stating that it has been suspected of abuse of Google’s game platform market power. It has been 2 years and 9 months since the formal investigation began. It is reported that the examination report did not include prosecution charges related to violations of the Fair Trade Act. Along with this, the Fair Trade Commission passed a state council by proposing a bill to the National Assembly to prevent unfair behaviors against businesses entering the company by platform companies.
On the 26th, according to the IT industry and the Fair Trade Commission, it recently completed an investigation into the suspicion of Google’s domestic mobile game development and distribution and sent a review report. The FTC usually determines the final violation and the level of sanctions at a plenary meeting after sending the audit report and listening to the opinions of the parties (Google).
As a result of the survey, the FTC determined that Google provided benefits to game companies using its application (app) market (marketplace)’Google Play Store’, resulting in the effect of excluding other competing platforms. However, it was decided not to file a prosecution complaint to criminally punish the person in charge. In the industry, there are also observations that the scale of the penalty imposed on Google will reach 50 billion won.
Google was suspicious of “cheating”, such as asking domestic game companies not to register in “One Store”, another app market, or giving profits or disadvantages as a condition when domestic game companies release mobile games on the “Google Play Store”. At that time in 2018, NCsoft’s’Lineage M’and Netmarble’s’Lineage 2 Revolution’ were released only on Google and Apple App Stores and were not listed on the One Store, so they were suspicious of unfair behavior.
Google occupies 60% of the domestic app market, which is an absolute share. In order to acquire a large number of users while launching a mobile game, it must be released on the Google Play Store. On the other hand, One Store is a platform created by Naver, three telecom companies such as SK Telecom, KT, and LG Uplus, and has a 10% market share in the app market.
The FTC began investigating domestic game companies in April 2018 to see if there was any unfair behavior by Google. In August of the same year, a field survey was also conducted on the Google Korea office in Yeoksam-dong, Gangnam-gu, Seoul.
At the time, Google said, “It does not provide any benefits to developers who release apps on the Google Play Store. Likewise, all apps on Google Play are provided with opportunities to be seen and recommended to users regardless of whether third-party app markets are released.” . It is said that it has never committed unfair acts such as discrimination against domestic game companies by releasing a game on the One Store. Google explained that it is up to each developer to decide which app market to put the game on, and there is no disadvantage as long as it adheres to the contract and program policy with Google Play.
Meanwhile, 20 to 30 domestic and foreign IT companies, including Naver, Kakao, Google, and Facebook, are expected to be subject to the Online Platform Brokerage Fair Act (hereinafter referred to as the Online Platform Act). In order to increase the effectiveness of the regulation of overseas operators, it is expected that the right to investigate will be exercised. When a platform operator and a store company sign a contract, a contract containing the damage sharing criteria must be written.
The Fair Trade Commission announced on the 26th that the enactment of the Online Platform Act has passed the State Council. The application of the Online Platform Act is a service that brokers the initiation of transactions between a store company and a consumer. In addition to the brokerage service, advertising, payment, delivery support, and customer management are also included in the transaction brokerage.
The enactment plan is focused on preventing the platform operators from becoming ill. When signing a contract with a store company, ▲ the order, form, and standards of exposure to the platform, ▲ the damage sharing standards, etc. were written in a contract. In addition, 30 days prior to the termination of the contract with the store company, and 7 days prior to service restriction or suspension. In addition, ▲ compulsory purchases ▲ compulsory economic interests ▲ loss of damage ▲ interference with management activities were also defined as unfair practices.
The object of application of the platform law prescribed by the government is the commission income, that is, sales of 10 billion won or less, or the sum of sales price, that is, the brokerage transaction amount, of 100 billion won or more, which is more than the amount prescribed by Presidential Decree. In this case, it includes platform fields such as open market, delivery app, app market, lodging app, boarding brokerage app, price comparison site, information provision service such as real estate and used cars, and search advertisement service.
According to the Fair Trade Commission, at this point, 8 open market platform companies, 2 lodging app companies, and 4 delivery app companies are applicable, but it may increase further according to the standards of the enforcement ordinance. There are 1.4 million stores that will benefit. First of all, not only open markets such as Coupang and Gmarket, but also portals that provide’search advertising services’ such as People of Delivery (food delivery), Yanolja (stay), Kakao Taxi (car ride), Naver, Kakao, and Google are also subject to regulation. to be.
In relation to the controversy over reverse discrimination raised by some, the FTC dismissed that it would be’applied without discrimination against domestic and foreign companies’. The Fair Trade Commission emphasized that “the data of foreign companies can be secured through various document delivery methods,” and emphasized that “businesses who are not responsible for their obligations will exercise the right to investigate and confirm and sanction them.” He stressed that “there are several ways” regarding the understanding of overseas platform sales and transactions.
Currently, there is no separate regulation for certain payment methods such as’force in-app payment’ by Google, which has emerged as a hot topic in the domestic IT industry. This is different from the provisions of a separate online platform bill submitted by Democratic Party lawmaker Kim Byeong-wook to the National Assembly to prohibit’forced act of certain payment methods’. In response, the FTC revealed, “The FTC enactment specifies that the act of forcing the purchase of goods or services is defined as an unfair trade act.” I put it.
Reporter Jeon Jin-hong [email protected]
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