South Korea’s media and communications regulator voted Wednesday to fine Google ₩42.9 billion (approximately $31.8 million — exchange rate as of October 28, 2026: 1 USD = 1,347 Korean won; conversions are approximate) and Apple ₩20.81 billion (approximately $15.4 million) — a combined fine of ₩63.71 billion, or $47.3 million — for blocking developers from genuinely benefiting from third-party payment options on their app stores.

The Korea Media and Communications Commission (KMCC) determined that both companies had offered alternative billing systems in name only: by setting their commission on third-party transactions at 26 percent on third-party billing — just four percentage points below the 30 percent standard rate — they had constructed a financial structure that made the alternative economically worthless, and in doing so had violated the world’s first law against forced in-app billing. That ruling — that a near-identical rate constitutes illegal obstruction, not compliance — is now precedent, and regulators in Brussels, Tokyo, and Washington are paying attention.

South Korea Passed the World’s First Anti-Forced-Billing Law in August 2021

The roots of Wednesday’s enforcement action reach back to August 31, 2021, when South Korea’s National Assembly amended its Telecommunications Business Act (TBA) to prohibit forced app-payment systems — banning app-store operators from requiring developers to use a single proprietary payment system. The amendment took effect on September 14, 2021, and its enforcement rules came into force the following March. Fines of up to three percent of an operator’s South Korean revenue were written into the statute for non-compliance.

At the time, the stakes were global. Google and Apple each collected commissions of 15 to 30 percent on in-app purchases — a policy that had triggered developer revolts, class-action lawsuits, and the high-profile Epic Games v. Apple legal battle in the United States. South Korea’s bill, informally called the “Anti-Google Law,” was explicitly designed to break that hold by requiring the platforms to allow alternative payment paths. “As bills with similar implications are being proposed in the US and Europe, South Korea’s bill will become a cornerstone for legislating app market platform regulations worldwide,” then-KCC Chairman Han Sang-hyuk said at the time.

How Google and Apple Made Third-Party Billing Cost Almost Exactly the Same as Their Own

Both companies announced they would comply. Neither actually did — at least not in a way that offered developers meaningful economic relief.

Google and Apple both opened their platforms to third-party payment processors after the law took effect, but both continued to charge developers a 26 percent third-party commission rate on transactions processed through those outside systems. The math made the “alternative” illusory. A developer using a third-party payment gateway still had to pay that processor’s own fee — typically three to five percent per transaction. Added to the platform’s 26 percent cut, the total cost of using an alternative (29 to 31 percent) equaled or exceeded the standard 30 percent proprietary rate. Developers who switched to the alternative gained nothing and, in many cases, paid slightly more.

The KMCC’s investigation, which the Korea Communications Commission (KCC) launched formally in 2022, identified that this rate structure was not coincidental. Regulators found a broader pattern of technical and contractual friction designed to make alternative billing economically and practically unattractive:

Google restricted how alternative payment options could be displayed to users, requiring them to actively select a payment method for each individual purchase — deliberate friction that increased opt-out rates for the alternative. Apple excluded third-party billing from its reduced-commission programs, meaning a developer eligible for the preferential 15 percent rate under Apple’s proprietary system faced a 26 percent charge when using an external alternative instead — a penalty for using the “open” option the law required Apple to offer.

These were not incidental implementation choices. The KMCC treated them as systemic: the commission structure and the display restrictions worked together to ensure that the “alternative” was not actually an alternative in any economically meaningful sense.

App Review Delays Added a Second Layer of Obstruction

Beyond the commission-rate structure, regulators identified a separate obstruction track operating through app review timelines.

The KMCC identified more than 10,000 instances in which Google exceeded its stated review period without explanation, and 1,658 cases where Apple took longer than 48 hours to complete a review — often without providing developers an expected timeline or a reason for the delay. Review delays, particularly unexplained ones, create a specific pressure on developers who have launched alternative payment integrations: if a new app version implementing a third-party billing option cannot clear review on time, the developer faces release delays and revenue interruption that effectively penalize choosing the alternative path.

The review delay findings extended the KMCC’s case beyond the commission-rate question and established that the obstruction operated at the technical implementation level as well as the economic one.

Apple Charged Korean Developers More Than Western Counterparts for Nearly Eight Years

The most financially significant finding in Wednesday’s ruling does not involve the commission rate at all. It involves the base from which that commission was calculated.

Apple applied different commission standards to Korean and overseas developers from July 2015 to January 2023. While foreign developers — including those in the United States and Europe — were charged commissions calculated on prices excluding value-added tax (VAT), Korean developers were charged based on VAT-inclusive prices. The difference is structural: because South Korean VAT is 10 percent, Korean developers effectively paid commission on a price 10 percent higher than their foreign counterparts for the same transaction amount.

Over nearly eight years, the KMCC estimated this structure cost Korean developers an additional ₩149.6 billion in excess commissions, or approximately $111.1 million. A citizen advocacy group called the practice “reverse discrimination,” noting that South Korean developers had been paying higher effective rates than developers in the United States and Europe — markets where court rulings and regulatory pressure had already forced Apple to offer better terms.

Apple’s position, stated in its response to the preliminary notice, was that its App Store changes complied with the Telecommunications Business Act. The KMCC rejected that position.

Three Years Between Warning and Vote — Why the Decision Took So Long

Wednesday’s ruling completes a regulatory process critics described as unacceptably slow.

The KCC issued a preliminary notice of proposed fines — ₩47.5 billion (approximately $35.3 million) for Google and ₩20.5 billion (approximately $15.2 million) for Apple — as early as October 2023, as the Korea Times has documented. The final vote was repeatedly deferred amid prolonged deliberation at the commission and a subsequent government reorganization that transformed the KCC into the KMCC.

At a national audit on October 12, 2026, National Assembly Science and ICT Committee Chairman Song Ki-heon criticized the delay, noting that nearly three years had elapsed since the preliminary notice without a final decision. KMCC Chairman Kim Jong-cheol, who took over after the commission reconstituted, acknowledged the criticism and pledged that a vote would take place before the end of October. “We are in the final stage of deliberation,” he said at the hearing.

The commission had been receiving additional filings and arguments from both companies during the intervening period. On Wednesday, it voted to impose the fines. The final penalty amounts differ modestly from the 2023 preliminary figures — Google’s fine landed at ₩42.9 billion (approximately $31.8 million) rather than ₩47.5 billion, and Apple’s at ₩20.81 billion (approximately $15.4 million) rather than ₩20.5 billion — reflecting adjustments made after the companies submitted additional documentation.

Google Korea expressed regret about the decision and said it would review the ruling and evaluate next steps. Apple said it disagreed with the decision and was evaluating its legal options in accordance with South Korean laws.

What the Corrective Orders Mean — and Why They Matter More Than the Fine

For both Google and Apple, the fines are manageable. Each company generates tens of billions of dollars in global revenue annually, and ₩63.71 billion combined is a fraction of what either earns from South Korean app distribution alone. South Korea’s Google Play generates approximately ₩5 trillion (approximately $3.71 billion) in annual sales; its App Store generates approximately ₩1.6 trillion (approximately $1.19 billion) — together representing a market in which the two platforms command more than 90 percent share.

The corrective orders accompanying Wednesday’s fine are a different matter. The KMCC is expected to require both companies to restructure their commission frameworks and review processes to achieve genuine compliance, with a three-month compliance window. What the orders specify — and in particular whether they set a maximum commission differential that platforms can charge on third-party billing options, or prohibit fee structures that approximate the standard rate — will determine whether the enforcement action actually changes the economics of alternative billing for Korean developers.

Google recently announced a new global fee structure that would reduce its marketplace commissions to a range of 10 to 25 percent from the current 15 to 30 percent. The KMCC noted at an August 2026 plenary session that the new policy does not yet apply to South Korea and cannot be treated as a voluntary corrective measure in the current proceeding.

South Korea’s 26% Ruling Gives Global Regulators a Number to Work With

Wednesday’s enforcement action lands in the middle of a global shift against closed in-app payment ecosystems — but it adds something the other regulatory efforts have not yet produced: a concrete, judicially tested definition of what a commission rate differential between proprietary and third-party billing systems must be before it stops constituting economic obstruction.

The EU’s Digital Markets Act (DMA), which began applying to designated gatekeepers including Apple and Google in 2023, imposes similar obligations and carries penalties up to 10 percent globally — rising to 20 percent for repeat infringers. Apple has restructured its EU fee schedule in response, introducing a “Core Technology Fee” — a €0.50 (approximately $0.54) per install charge levied on iOS developers who use alternative app distribution in the bloc. The European Commission opened a Core Technology Fee probe in 2024 to determine whether that fee structure constitutes DMA non-compliance under the same theory the KMCC just applied to Google and Apple’s 26% rate: nominal compliance that economically nullifies the regulation’s intent.

That is the largest unstated implication of Wednesday’s ruling. South Korea’s KMCC has now formally established — for the first time, through an actual enforcement action with a monetary fine — that a commission differential of four percentage points (26% vs. 30%) is insufficient to constitute meaningful compliance with a mandatory alternative payment law. The EU, Japan, and other regulators calibrating their own enforcement against Apple and Google can cite that threshold when evaluating whether the companies’ EU and Japanese fee structures represent genuine compliance or the same workaround Seoul just rejected.

Japan passed legislation in 2024 requiring open payment rails on mobile platforms; both companies have restructured their Japanese App Store and Play Store policies under that law. The Netherlands Authority for Consumers and Markets had repeatedly fined Apple ten times, totaling €50 million, for inadequate compliance with local dating-app payment rules before Apple eventually complied. South Korea’s ₩63.71 billion combined fine is now the largest single enforcement action under its own law, and the clearest statement any regulator has made about where the line between compliance and obstruction falls.

Frequently Asked Questions

What did South Korea actually find Google and Apple did wrong?

The Korea Media and Communications Commission (KMCC) found that Google and Apple violated South Korea’s 2021 law banning forced in-app billing by offering third-party payment options at a commission rate (26%) that was economically indistinguishable from the standard rate on their proprietary systems (30%). Adding a third-party payment processor’s own fee of three to five percent meant developers who used the alternative often paid the same or more than if they had stayed on the platform’s own billing. Regulators also found that Google restricted how alternative options could be displayed, Apple excluded the alternative from its reduced-commission programs, and both companies imposed unexplained app review delays that penalized developers who built in third-party billing.

What will the corrective orders require Google and Apple to change?

The KMCC is expected to issue corrective orders requiring both companies to restructure their commission frameworks and review processes within three months. The specific requirements have not been fully published as of Wednesday’s vote, but the central question is whether the orders will define a maximum allowable commission rate on third-party billing — effectively setting a floor on how large the price difference must be before it constitutes genuine compliance. If the orders specify that, for example, the third-party rate must not exceed a certain percentage of the proprietary rate, it will create a numerically testable standard that regulators in other jurisdictions can adopt.

Why does South Korea’s ruling matter for app developers outside South Korea?

South Korea’s KMCC is the first regulator anywhere in the world to impose a formal monetary fine under an app-payment freedom law and to articulate, in that fine, the specific rate differential (four percentage points) that it deemed insufficient for genuine compliance. The EU’s Digital Markets Act regulators investigating Apple’s Core Technology Fee, Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs assessing compliance with Japan’s 2024 app market legislation, and the US Department of Justice in its ongoing antitrust case against Apple can all cite the KMCC’s ruling as a real-world enforcement benchmark. For individual developers, the ruling’s immediate practical impact depends on what the corrective orders require; if they mandate a wider commission differential for alternative billing, South Korean developers could see materially lower effective platform fees for the first time since the 2021 law passed.

Were Korean app developers paying more than developers in other countries?

Yes, according to the KMCC’s finding. Apple charged Korean developers commissions calculated on VAT-inclusive prices from July 2015 to January 2023, while developers in the United States and Europe paid commissions on VAT-exclusive prices. Because South Korean VAT is 10 percent, Korean developers paid an effective commission rate approximately 10 percent higher on the same nominal transaction amounts. The KMCC calculated the total excess at ₩149.6 billion, approximately $111.1 million, over that period. Apple changed its pricing structure in January 2023, but the historical excess is one of the grounds for Wednesday’s fine.