Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

CTOnews.com, Sept. 30 (Xinhua)-- Apple's South Korean headquarters were raided by antitrust regulators after developers complained that Apple charged them a 33% commission, higher than the 30% cut standard for App Store.

According to Foss Patents, the Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) conducted a raid at dawn, highlighting South Korea's antitrust determination.

According to the report, Apple charged developers a commission of 33% (including VAT) of the amount actually paid by users, 10% higher than the normal 30%. It is worth mentioning that it is also 30% in the Google store (excluding VAT).

This also applies to the 15% tax rate that applies to small businesses or first-year subscriptions: developers in South Korea pay a fee of 16.5% because Apple squeezes more commission out of it. It is reported that between 2015 and 2020, Apple's "3 per cent" was about 345 billion won (about 1.722 billion yuan, $240 million).

In addition, Apple has a similar situation 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.

CTOnews.com learned that this means that Apple is currently under investigation by two South Korean government agencies.

In August, the Korean Broadcasting and Communications Commission (KCC) said that since May 17, it had inspected Apple, Google and One Store to determine whether they were illegal, and concluded that all three companies may have violated laws and regulations related to internal purchase of applications.

If KCC eventually finds misconduct in the investigation, it will issue a corrective order and impose a fine of up to 2 per cent of the average annual income of the relevant business.

In January, Apple announced that it would comply with a new South Korean law that forbids app stores to force developers to use their in-house systems. The new law came into effect in late June, so Apple also allows developers to use alternative third-party payment systems in South Korea.

However, Foss Patents believes that Apple is cheating and cheating by raising the cost of using other payment services to desperate levels. It is said that Apple charges other service providers a 26% commission, twice as much as South Korean developers use Apple's in-app purchase system.

Welcome to subscribe "Shulou Technology Information " to get latest news, interesting things and hot topics in the IT industry, and controls the hottest and latest Internet news, technology news and IT industry trends.