Apple’s South Korean headquarters was raided by antitrust regulators after developers complained that Apple charged them a 33% commission, which is higher than the 30% commission in the App Store.
The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) conducted a raid at dawn, underscoring South Korea’s antitrust resolve, Foss Patents reported.
The report pointed out that Apple charged developers a commission of 33% of what users actually paid (including VAT), which was 10% higher than the normal 30%. It is worth mentioning that it is also 30% (excluding VAT) in the Google Store.
This also applies to the 15% tax rate that applies to small businesses or first-year subscriptions: developers in South Korea pay 16.5% because Apple squeezes more commissions out of it. According to reports, between 2015 and 2020, Apple’s “3%” was about 345 billion won (about 1.722 billion yuan, 240 million US dollars).
In addition, Apple has similar situations in other countries such as France, Italy (32.1%), Turkey (35.25%) and the United Kingdom (31.5%), but no formal lawsuit has been filed in these countries.
This means that Apple is currently under investigation by two South Korean government agencies.
In August, the Korea Broadcasting and Communications Commission (KCC) said that starting May 17, it had inspected Apple, Google and One Store to determine whether they were breaking the law and concluded that all three companies may have violated the law. In-app purchase related laws and regulations.
If KCC ultimately finds misconduct during this investigation, it will issue a corrective order and impose a fine of up to 2% of the average annual revenue of the relevant business.
In January, Apple announced it would comply with a new South Korean law that bars the App Store from forcing developers to use its in-app purchase system. In late June, the new regulation went into effect, so Apple also allows developers to use alternative third-party payment systems in South Korea.
However, Foss Patents argues that Apple is cheating by raising the cost of using other payment services to desperate levels. Apple is said to charge other service providers a 26 percent commission, twice as much as South Korean developers using Apple’s in-app purchase system.
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