Discussion on countermeasures against forced in-app payment
2~3 related bills to be announced by next month
If legislative work in the U.S. begins in earnest,
Resolving of the trade conflict between t
The U.S. Congress will introduce additional legislation to regulate platform companies this month. In Korea, the amendment of the Telecommunication Business Act, which has the core of the ban on forced in-app payments, is about to be submitted to the Legislative and Judiciary Committee, drawing attention to the movement of the US government and Congress. If legislative work in the United States starts in earnest, it is expected that concerns about the trade conflict between Korea and the United States would be resolved and the domestic legislation will gain more momentum.
Mark Buse, the founding executive of the Coalition for App Fairness (CAF), said, “An additional bill to regulate big tech (platform) companies will be introduced in the Senate this week” at a discussion meeting on measures to counter in-app payment forced by platform companies recently hosted by the Electronic Times. He also said, “We expect that two or three additional bills will be introduced at the federal level by next month.”
CAF is an alliance formed by content companies in September last year to respond to Google and Apple's unfair practices in the app market. Global leaders in the content industry, such as Epic Games (game engine), Match Group (dating), and Spotify (sound source), as well as small and medium-sized enterprises in each field have come together. This is to oppose Google's mandatory application of in-app payment, which will be applied from October. Buse, the founding executive of CAF is a vice president of Match Group, famous for its social application 'Tinder', and is a content and policy expert who served as an aide to U.S. Senator John McCain.
Earlier, in June, the Legislation and Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House Judiciarypassed five antitrust bills related to platform companies. The bill △prohibits big tech companies from making their private brand (PB) products and selling them at low prices on their own platforms△bans first exposing their services in search results△obliges them to prove that they are not threatening market competition when acquiring other companies△prohibiting fee increases when applying for corporate mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and △obliging data transfer when moving user services. The passage of the bill was led by Democrats David Cicilline and Republican Ken Buck, and it was evaluated that Representative from the left and the right joined forces to regulate platform companies.
“House of Representatives Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, has announced that this issue (platform business regulation) will be discussed publicly. It is expected to continue to be discussed in the US Congress (as an additional bill is proposed).”, said Buse, a founding executive. It is expected that if a bill to ban in-app purchases is passed in Korea, a similar regulatory discussion will begin in the United States.
"As the US Congress is also developing discussions on big tech regulations, there is no possibility that trade conflict will arise (at the US Congress level) due to the revision of Korea's Telecommunications Business Act," Buse added.
The National Assembly of Korea is expected to hold a Judiciary Committee meeting after mid-August to handle amendments to the Telecommunications Business Act. The key is to prohibit platform companies from applying their own payment method obligations. It is the only de facto legal regulation that will counteract to Google's application of the policy in October. Buse visited the National Assembly Science, ICT, Broadcasting and Communications Committee earlier this month and urged the passage of the amendment to the Telecommunications Business Act.
By Staff Reporter Siso Kim (siso@etnews.com)