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Today (23rd), the National Assembly Science and Technology Information Broadcasting and Communication Commission’s Legislation Review Subcommittee was held, but the’Google In-App Payment Compulsory Prevention Act’ again broke.
If’in-app payment’ is forced to buy apps with money from the Google App Market (Google Play) starting in the fourth quarter of this year, domestic developers are expected to increase the fee burden from as little as 88.5 billion won to as much as 3442 billion won. However, the National Assembly is criticized for showing a lukewarm attitude.
Currently, apps other than games can use the external payment system built by the app developer when paying for in-app content, but starting in the fourth quarter, the apps must also use the Google in-app payment system. At this point, you have to pay a 30% fee to Google.
In particular, criticism was raised that the National Assembly was passed to the Google lobby after the Google side delivered a story to the secretary’s office of Park Seong-joong that’we are discussing a plan to reduce the 30% fee by 15% with the head office’. have.
An official from the Ministry of Defense said, “The 2nd so-called Chairman Park Seong-joong did not process the bill because it required in-depth discussion. Told.
He said, “A total of six bills (amendments to the Telecommunications Business Act) have been proposed, and there is an alternative to the committee, so the bill is ready to be handled by the subcommittee. On this day, there was an agreement between the ruling and opposition parties that prevented certain payment methods from being enforced, so even if we try to pass it through, we will continue to set an additional deadline and discuss again.”
Google’s overbearing app store operation and in-app payment enforcement are causing backlash from the domestic internet and content industries.
According to the survey results submitted by the Korea Communications Commission by Cho Seung-rae and Democratic Party lawmaker, 37.8% of the 315 app providers who responded answered that they experienced app registration rejection, delay in review, and deletion. App registration review delays accounted for the largest portion with 88.2%, 44.5% rejected app registration, and 33.6% experienced app deletion.
App markets where app developers experienced app registration rejection were 65.5% in Google Play Store, 58.0% in Apple App Store, and 1.7% in One Store. Even in cases where app registration refusals were made without a separate explanation, Google Play Store 17.9% and Apple App Store 8.7%.
Accordingly, Koo Bonki Life Economics Research Institute, Financial Justice Solidarity, Korea Publishing Culture Association, People’s Economic Research Institute, Venture Business Association, Citizen Safety Network, Correct Communication Welfare Alliance, Korean Popular Literature Writers Association, Korea Consumer Federation, Korea Web Novel Industry Association, Korea 17 organizations such as Web Novel Association, Korea Music Contents Association, Korea Internet Enterprise Association, Korea Electronic Publishing Association, Korea Creative Story Writers Association, Korean Publishers Association, and Korea YMCA National Federation made a joint statement on the 18th and forced the National Assembly to make in-app payments. He urged the passage of prevention laws.
Meanwhile, the’Online Platform User Protection Act’, which is another concern of the Internet industry, was also not submitted to the subcommittee on the day. This is because the division of work between the Korea Communications Commission and the FTC was not properly achieved.