On August 26, 2026, the Mobile Content Forum, a Japanese app-developer group, told the Japan Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) that some Apple and Google practices may breach the Mobile Software Competition Act. According to MLex's report, the Forum's survey found that developers have largely avoided alternative app stores and payment options because of high fees and other concerns. The Forum argued that the law's objectives "have yet to be achieved" and asked the JFTC to enforce it properly. The detailed survey figures sit behind MLex's paywall, so this analysis rests on the Forum's reported conclusions, not on its raw numbers.
The case for the regulator's patience
The JFTC's caution has a serious justification. The Act, which took full effect on December 18, 2025, covers four categories of software: operating systems, app stores, browsers and search engines. Its stated aim is to promote competition and innovation while protecting security and privacy. A regulator that moves fast against the wrong fee structure can degrade the security of a platform that hundreds of millions of people rely on. The JFTC has also had little time. Apple and Google filed their first compliance reports on the day the law took effect, and the JFTC published them on February 18, 2026. Their second reports, covering December 18, 2025 to March 31, 2026, were published on July 27, 2026. That is one reporting cycle, which is a thin record on which to find a violation.
If the JFTC treats the compliance reports as a conversation, that is also defensible. The agency says it will examine the impact on business operators and is soliciting stakeholder feedback. Ex ante regimes are new, and regulators in other jurisdictions have learned that compliance plans drafted under pressure can produce rules nobody understands.
Why the developers' complaint still matters
The Forum's complaint is not about whether Apple and Google have complied on paper. It is about whether the options on offer are usable. The Forum's reported position is that alternative distribution should be allowed free of charge. It also holds that new fees for alternative payment systems and for link-outs to websites breach the law. A separate letter from the Coalition for App Fairness makes a similar point: it quotes developers saying Apple's newly proposed payment options "are not a viable option for developers". The Coalition is an advocacy group funded by Apple's rivals, so the claim deserves scrutiny, but the Forum's survey is independent evidence pointing the same way.
This is the heart of the problem for a pro-innovation reading. A rule that opens a door in law but charges a toll at the threshold may produce less competition than the old closed system, because it adds compliance complexity without lowering costs. Developers' behavior is the most reliable test of an opening regime. If they overwhelmingly stay inside the incumbent stores, the market has not opened, whatever the compliance reports say.
The penalty structure raises the stakes for both sides
The Act has real teeth. When it was before the Diet, the government planned a surcharge of 20% of domestic sales in the relevant fields for non-compliance, rising to 30% for repeat violations. For comparison, that report notes the basic cartel surcharge under the Antimonopoly Act is 10% and the surcharge for exclusion-type violations is only 6%. These figures come from the April 2024 bill as described by the ruling party, so the enacted text should be checked before anyone relies on them.
It follows that the JFTC's choice is not between a soft and a hard approach. It is a choice of when to open a formal investigation on a statute where the downside of a wrong call is large for companies and the upside of a right call is large for developers. That is exactly why the evidence needs to be strong and published.
What proportionate enforcement should look like
The answer is not to abandon dialogue, nor to demand an immediate enforcement action. Three steps would serve both innovation and legal certainty.
- Publish the standard. The JFTC should say what makes a fee for alternative distribution or payment compatible with the Act: cost-based, tied to services actually provided, or neither. Developers and platforms cannot comply with a test they cannot read.
- Measure uptake. The Forum's survey implies the right metric is developer adoption of alternative channels. The JFTC should collect and publish adoption data each reporting cycle, so the question of whether the law is working has a number attached.
- Set a timeline. Dialogue without a deadline becomes delay. A stated point at which unresolved concerns trigger a formal inquiry would give platforms an incentive to fix issues voluntarily.
There is also a free-speech and openness dimension. Alternative app stores and browsers are the channels through which apps the dominant stores decline to carry can reach users. An open distribution market is a precondition for a diverse application ecosystem, and security concerns should be handled through narrowly tailored requirements, not blanket fees.
The bottom line
Japan wrote a strong law and has so far run a cautious process. Neither is a mistake in itself. But a statute is only as good as the behavior it changes, and the Mobile Content Forum's survey says behavior has not changed much. The JFTC does not need to abandon its dialogue-first approach to respond. It needs to attach published standards, adoption metrics and a timeline to it. Otherwise, the first real test of Asia's first comprehensive ex ante platform law will be decided by the companies' reading of the rules, not the regulator's.