New Telecommunications Business Act Becomes Effective on March 15

The South Korean government approved a revised enforcement decree of the Telecommunications Business Act on March 8. The world’s first law for the purpose of app market regulation becomes effective on March 15.

The purpose of the act is to prevent app market operators such as Apple and Google from forcing in-app payment and the new enforcement ordinance stipulates details as to prohibitions, punishments, and so on.

According to the latter, those operators must let app developers provide information on and promote other payment methods with outlinks and the like and the operators must not discriminate developers not using in-app payment with regard to purchase and usage data processing.

“We prepared the rules as precisely as possible so that the rules cannot be circumvented,” the Korea Communications Commission said, adding, “We are going to strictly enforce the law so that substantial changes can be made.”