Anti-competitive Behavior
The Korea Fair Trade Commission has ordered Google to pay a penalty of 42.1 billion won (US$31.8 million) for having hindered mobile game launches on One Store, a domestically launched app market and an alternative to the Google Play Store.
According to the commission, Google provided incentives for mobile game companies to exclude One Store from their launches, and the incentives included showing their games on the first page of Google Play. These incentives were provided from 2016 to 2018 in order to curb the growth of One Store, which was launched in 2016 as a combination of the app markets of Naver, SK Telecom, KT, and LG U+.
The incentives led to limited market competition and seriously affected One Store. The number of those paying for it began to decrease immediately after its launch in June 2016. By contrast, the Google’s share in the domestic app market rose from 80 percent or so to over 90 percent from 2016 to 2018.
The penalty along with a correction order was imposed after a five-year investigation. Google must set up an internal monitoring system for recurrence prevention and report how it works to the commission.