A verdict without a number
On August 12, 2026, South Korea's Korea Media and Communications Commission (KMCC) concluded what app developers in the country have argued since 2022: Google and Apple violated the 2021 amendment to the Telecommunications Business Act by charging roughly 26 percent commission on purchases routed through third-party payment systems — just four points below their standard 30 percent in-app cut. The commission said sanction levels "will be decided at a later date" (Korea JoongAng Daily; Korea Times).
That sentence is the whole story. Korea now has an official finding that the law was broken — and, five years after passage, still no fine, no compliance deadline, and no clarity on what a violation actually costs.
The law that was supposed to change everything
On August 31, 2021, Korea's National Assembly amended the Telecommunications Business Act to bar "application market operators" from forcing developers to use a single, proprietary payment system — the world's first statute of its kind, passed 180–8 and nicknamed the "anti-Google law." It authorized the then-Korea Communications Commission to investigate app-market operators and impose corrective orders. The KMCC's own August 2022 press release describes launching a formal fact-finding probe into Google, Apple, and domestic app store One Store over forced payment methods, discriminatory treatment of outside billing, and opaque app-review delays.
The statute was meant to do structurally what antitrust cases do slowly: force platforms to let a competitive payments market operate, rather than litigate market definition case by case. It is the model Japan's Mobile Software Competition Act and the EU's Digital Markets Act later borrowed, each in their own form.
How 26% beat a 30% ban
Google and Apple did comply with the letter of the law — both opened "alternative billing" options in Korea. The KMCC's finding is that they nullified its purpose in the process: a near-30-percent service fee on the alternative channel, combined with the payment processor's own card fee, left developers paying almost as much as they would have inside the platforms' own systems. Apple was separately accused of discriminatory fees against Korean developers specifically and of slow-walking app review for those using outside payment; Google was accused of restricting how payment choices could be presented and requiring a method selection on every purchase (KMCC press release, October 2023; Korea Times, August 2026).
This is the textbook "malicious compliance" critique of anti-steering laws: a platform can satisfy a rule's text while leaving its economics untouched, because the rule bans a mechanism (forced IAP) rather than an outcome (near-monopoly rents).
Five years, two investigations, zero penalties
The KMCC opened its investigation in August 2022. In October 2023, it proposed maximum fines of 68 billion won combined — 47.5 billion won ($35–37 million) for Google and 20.5 billion won ($16 million) for Apple (KMCC press release; TechCrunch). Both companies contested the finding: Google said it had "worked closely with KCC to demonstrate how we are complying," and Apple said it "disagree[d] with the conclusion." Nearly three years of hearings later, the August 2026 plenary produced only a restated finding of violation — the actual fine, and any compliance order, remains undetermined.
The case for the law — and its failure mode
The strongest case for Korea's approach is real: Google and Apple control the only two viable distribution channels for mobile software in a market with no functioning substitute, and a payments monopoly layered on top of a distribution monopoly is exactly the kind of durable market power that ordinary competition law struggles to touch quickly. A bright-line statutory ban, rather than a multi-year abuse-of-dominance case, was a defensible bet that speed would beat precision.
That bet has now failed on its own terms. A law whose enforcement timeline outlasts the product cycles it regulates cannot discipline pricing behavior — it becomes a compliance cost platforms can safely defer. Five years without a single collected penalty, against two companies each capable of absorbing a $50 million fine as a rounding error, has taught Google and Apple that a 26 percent "alternative" fee is a low-risk way to keep the economics of a 30 percent one.
What proportionate enforcement would look like
The fix here isn't more law, it's finishing this one. Korea's own finding gives it the authority to now impose the 2023 fine figures, set a firm compliance deadline for fee levels, and — if 26 percent is found to nullify the statute — require it to fall meaningfully below the standard commission, not just under it. Structural design also matters: fee-percentage litigation invites exactly the years-long argument Korea is now in. A tiered cap set in the statute or its enforcement decree, closer to Japan's MSCA model, would remove the discretion that both regulator and platforms have used to run out the clock.
The alternative — a landmark law that produces findings but never penalties — is worse than no law at all. It lets Seoul claim credit for regulating Big Tech while giving Google and Apple five years of evidence that the claim doesn't bind.