South Korea’s parliament passes bill to curb Google, Apple commission dominance By Reuters

By Heekyong Yang

SEOUL (Reuters) – South Korea’s parliament on Tuesday approved a bill that bans major app store operators such as Google and Apple from forcing software developers to use their payment systems, effectively stopping them from charging commissions on in-app purchases.

It is the first such curb by a major economy on the likes of Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL) and Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Inc’s Google, which face global criticism for requiring the use of proprietary payment systems that charge commissions of up to 30%.

The final vote was 180 in favour out of 188 attending to pass the amendment to the Telecommunications Business Act, dubbed the “Anti-Google law.”

A spokesperson for Google could not be reached. Apple did not have an immediate comment.