Amanda Beaver 

Staff Writer

amb8482@psu.edu

Have you ever been on an iphone and wanted to make an in-app purchase? Or been on the app store and have downloaded a paid app? If so then you’re most likely accustomed to the pop up from Apple asking for either your password or another form of identification. 

It might not be public knowledge that when doing such, Apple collects 30 percent of the money given in the transaction. The South Korean government saw a problem with this, developing a bill to ban Google and Apple from forming such monopolies. In other words, Apple and Google must provide it’s phone users other ways to pay for the apps or in-app purchases that the consumer is making. 

On August 31st South Korea passed an “Anti-Google Law.” The country, which has the tenth largest economy in the world with a GDP of 1,586.79 and is a global giant for technology, is the first to pass this kind of bill. It is expected for President Moon Jae-in to sign the bill making it a law. Passing this bill is important so more fair competition can be promoted and developers will no longer be losing up to 30 percent of their profit. This also allows developers to  no longer be waiting an extended period to have their apps approved. 

Webtoon, a very popular Korean app known for its free online comics, works by having outside artists post their stories onto the app and have people read them. The stories are free, but if readers want early access to the future chapters the readers have the option to buy tickets that allow them to read the story before a non-paying reader.

Seo Bum-gang, a webtoons artist, explains to AFA, “Without this law, our working environment — where creators are guaranteed full rewards for their efforts — would’ve been destroyed.” They mention diversity in the industry and how they hope webtoon can be “ where artists and creators of all economic backgrounds can share their content without having to worry about the commission fees.”

Apple is expectantly against the bill saying the bill will cause a high amount of fraud and explaining, “We believe user trust in App Store purchases will decrease as a result of this legislation.” Their argument is that by passing this law, the security of apps and app purchases will be compromised. They also argue that it will lower the effectiveness of parental controls, as well as other similar controls. 

Google is also against the bill but for other reasons then security. They have claimed it is not sure how the soon to be law will be changed to comply.

“Google Play provides far more than payment processing and our service fee helps keep Android free, giving developers the tools and global platform to access billions of consumers around the world,” Google explains, “Just as it costs developers money to build an app, it costs us money to build and maintain an operating system and app store. We’ll reflect on how to comply with this law while maintaining a model that supports a high-quality operating system and app store, and we will share more in the coming weeks.”

Other countries, such as China, Australia and some European countries, are also trying to pass similar anti-monopoly laws, but none have been successful yet. Although in many countries the same backlash has arised with the same complaint of the high commission of 30 percent. In a lawsuit’s preliminary settlement, filed by Epic Games, the creator of fortnight, the Federal Court Judge questioned why such a game such as fortnight couldn’t provide their own payment screens in the app. Over the last year, Apple and Google have both decreased their commissions down to 15 percent, but that isn’t enough for companies such as Epic Games. 

In the future markets such as the European Union, China, and the United States of America seem to be leading to follow in Korean’s footsteps and ban such damaging monopolies to small and large developers alike.  U.S. Senators have already begun a new bipartisan bill forbidding Apple and Google to create in-app purchasing restrictions.

It seems that the future is going to be one without the small vibration and the pop-up that asks for apple identification. The question is, is this a good thing for everyone but app-store companies, or are we looking at a future filled with fraud as they claim?