Choose Love With The Netherlands, Apple Allows Applications In South Korea To Use Alternative Payments

JAKARTA - Unlike the Netherlands, Apple treats South Korea well. The company plans to allow developers to use third-party payment options in the country.

In fact, Apple will charge a lower service fee. The Korean Communications Commission (KCC) said it would talk to Apple to finalize further details, including the service fee structure and an exact date when the payment options will take effect.

In October last year, KCC asked global app store operators such as Google and Apple to submit detailed plans under the country's new law, which prohibits app store operators from forcing developers to use their payment systems.

In response to that, Apple told KCC at the same time that in fact, it was in line with the new law in South Korea.

While Google last November, has made a strategy to provide an alternative payment system in its app store in South Korea, as a step to follow the new law.

Dubbed the "Anti Google law" which came into effect in September. The company will reduce developer service fees by 4 percent. For example, if developers previously paid 15 percent for transactions through Google Play's billing system, now they will only pay 11 percent through its alternative billing system.

For information, South Korea does pay special attention to technology businesses, including application developers. In late August 2021, South Korea's parliament passed the world's first bill to prevent global tech giants from forcing developers to use their in-app billing system.

"We look forward to working with KCC and our developer community for solutions that benefit our Korean users," an Apple spokesperson said, as quoted by TechCrunch, Friday, February 18.

Apple reports that the number of app developers operating in South Korea has increased to about 580,000, with more than 1.4 million apps available on the Korean App Store since 2008.

Through its App Store, Apple has helped Korean developers access markets and customers in nearly 200 countries around the world. So don't be surprised if Apple's treatment of South Korea is quite different from other countries.

In the Netherlands, the company failed to comply with Autoriteit Consumer & Markt (ACM) orders to allow dating apps to use non-Apple payments.

ACM disclosed, Apple was fined back 5 million euros, equivalent to Rp. 80.9 billion. The country's antitrust watchdog said the tech giant applied unreasonable conditions to local dating app providers, who wanted to use non-Apple payment technologies in their apps.

"The adjustment conditions that Apple has set for dating app providers are unreasonable and create an unnecessary barrier," ACM said in a statement.

“The new requirement states that if they want to use an alternative payment system, the dating app provider must create a new app from scratch. Apple has notified ACM about this. App providers can't modify their existing apps."