The Fair Trade Commission (Chairman Ki-Jeong Han, hereinafter referred to as the “Fair Commission”) issued a corrective order and a fine of KRW 42.1 billion for Google’s act of undermining competition in the app market by banning mobile game companies from launching competing app market (One Store) games. Announced on the 11th that it had decided to impose (provisional).
As an overwhelming market-dominant operator in the Android app market, Google provides first-page exposure (featuring) and support for overseas expansion in the Play Store (hereinafter referred to as ‘Google Play’), which is very important for mobile game sales, as a condition for Google Play’s exclusive launch. This freed them from releasing the game on the One Store.
Google continued this behavior from June 2016, when One Store was launched, to April 2018, when the Fair Trade Commission initiated an investigation, including not only large game companies such as 3N (Netmarble, Nexon, and NCsoft) but also small and medium-sized game companies. It was executed for the entire mobile game market.
As a result, One Store, a latecomer, could not attract new games normally, which not only directly caused a decrease in sales and reduced the value of One Store as a platform. As a result, Google could further consolidate its dominance in the app market.
There was.
This measure is significant in that it created conditions for fair competition in the app market as part of the establishment of a fair market order emphasized by the Yoon Seok-yeol government by severely sanctioning giant platform companies such as Google using their market dominance to strengthen their monopoly power in the app market. There is.
The FTC said, “In particular, monopolization of the app market can adversely affect the entire related mobile ecosystem, so it is particularly important to restore competition in this market, so it is of great significance.” “We plan to strictly enforce the law without discrimination between domestic and foreign companies against anti-competitive behaviors conducted to maintain and strengthen the company,” he said.
