South Korea’s antitrust watchdog finds multinational Google damaging fair competition in the internet market with its abusive use of dominant power to suggest it will likely come up with punitive or remedial action after investigations.

Joh Sung-wook, chairperson of Korea’s Fair Trade Commission (FTC), responding to questions at the National Assembly’s State Affairs Committee hearing on Thursday said the agency agreed Google posed danger to fair market competition by seeing the multinational as a dominant player in the internet market.

Google was able to require all contents providers marketing at its app store to adopt its payment methods such as in-app purchases and charge 30 percent commission on all payment from next year as it does not see a “competition in the market,” she said.

FTC already is looking into the app market issue on top of the investigation that it has been conducting since 2016 on the matters of Google blocking smartphone makers from installing rivaling operating systems and pressuring game publishers for exclusive release at its app store.

If a company is found to have abused its market dominance and violated the FTC’s rules, the company would become subject to the authority’s review and punishment, said Joh.

“Any company, whether it is based locally or offshore, is subject to our antitrust rules,” she said.

Separately, a lawmaker accused Google of sharing profits from in-app and search ads with Korean wireless carriers and smartphone makers. According to People Power Party Rep. Lee Young, mobile carriers received up to 50 percent of in-app purchase payment commissions from Google on game contents.

By Pulse

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