Application Markets Have Worrying Provisions

Google and Apple both have good reputations for their application markets. But it was revealed that their application markets have some bad provisions.

“Analyzing materials in the 2014 Monitoring of Content User Protection Report by the Content Dispute Resolution Committee tells me that Google and Apple nearly flunked in items directly related to the protection of the users of their application markets,” said Rep. Park Hong-geun of the New Politics Alliance for Democracy who is on the Education, Culture, Sports and Tourism Committee.

The results of the monitoring say that Google Play, Apple’s App Store, Kakao, and Naver’s Line Plus recorded 44.4 percent, 11 percent, 25 percent, and 11 percent, respectively, as their compliance rates in nine items directly linked to the protection of users, such as refunds and the cancellation of orders.

The service provisions of Google Play do not have regulations on five items, such as refunding money due to the business operator’s mistakes. Apple’s App Store’s sales and refund policies are missing eight items, such as the refunds of wrongly paid money, the ability to cancel orders, and the ability to terminate agreements. According to the User Protection Guideline in Korea, content providers have to mark or notify if they use provisions more disadvantageous to users.  

A violation of this rule is subject to a correction order from the Minister of Culture, Sports, and Tourism. But the Content Dispute Resolution Committee has not taken proper follow-up actions, such as checking whether or not they implemented the rule since the committee sent notices to them. Instead, it is known that the committee is considering scratching off multinational companies such as Google, Apple, and Line from its list of companies to be monitored, under the pretext that requesting compliance with User Protection Guidelines through their domestic business sites is not effective.  

“It is not right for the committee to consider excluding them from the list after monitoring them only once in 2014,” Rep. Park said. “Excluding Google and Apple, which enjoy a combined market share of 80 percent, the guideline will be useless.”