Apple-Google monopoly on app store transactions won't last: Japan

Apple-Google monopoly on app store transactions won't last: Japan

Software developers have to use their own payment system of Apple and Google's App Store. This monopoly that has spread throughout the world can no longer be exercised in Japan. And the consequences can be far-reaching.

A Japanese government committee on market regulation made this announcement in a report, according to a Reuters report.

The committee, in its final report released on Friday, said smartphone operating system manufacturers (mainly Apple and Google) would be obliged to provide customers with other secure means of payment in addition to their own in-store transactions.

Japan's mobile operating system market is largely dominated by Apple's iOS and Google's Android.

Apple customers can only download apps from their own Appstore. Meanwhile, both stores have to use only their own payment method with a commission rate of 30 percent.

The report of the panel says that the Japanese government will finalize the process of making a law in this regard. The Asahi Shimbun reported in a report on Saturday that the government is moving ahead with the goal of introducing the bill to parliament as soon as possible by the beginning of next year.

The Japanese government's committee members include the country's Industry Minister Yatoshi Nishimura and Finance Minister Shigeyuki Goto.

If Japan implements this law, it is likely to have a ripple effect on the smartphone market throughout the world. Europe, in particular, is likely to quickly adopt similar initiatives.

In the last few years, the world's top technology companies have seen the practice of creating monopoly or monopolistic situations in the market in various ways and making unusual amounts of money from it. Apart from this, there have been accusations of knowingly disregarding the rights of citizens and children using this monopoly.

In the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook sold data on its users and their contacts (including non-Facebook users) to a privately held firm that used that data to influence the outcome of the 2016 US presidential election. Facebook's other platform, Instagram's algorithm, has continued to do so despite its own research showing that it is harmful to the mental health of teenagers.

Google has been accused of constantly collecting user data without their knowledge. The user has no idea how this data is used. In order to hide this data abuse, Google has deliberately complicated the entire data system, it has also been alleged in the United States Congress.

Meta, the company that owns Facebook, and Alphabet, the company that owns Google, claim to be technology companies, but they are essentially tech-based advertising businesses, and this is where most of their revenue comes from.

Apple hasn't gotten into the ad business yet. Also, while their commitment to user privacy is better claimed than the other two giants, Apple's stance on creating a monopoly in the market is perhaps the most rigid.

That's probably why governments and authorities on both sides of the Atlantic are creating new laws alongside existing ones to break up the monopolistic influence of tech giants.

Laws on monopolistic influence in the market have long existed in Europe and America and have been applied at various times. An example is the 1990s antitrust case against Microsoft in the browser trade.

However, after the Cambridge Analytica scandal, governments have stepped up their crackdown on technology companies' monopolies.

As a result, if there is a way to break the App Store's revenue monopoly, it will likely take Europe, America as well as other countries around the world.