South Korea says Google can't block developers from providing an in-app link to an outside website to buy digital goods under the country's app payment law
Jiyoung Sohn / Wall Street Journal :
Context & Ripple Effects
This ruling is the enforcement teeth arriving for the 2021 National Assembly bill that forced Apple and Google to open their Korean app stores to alternative payments. Google had already complied on paper by letting Android developers use non-Play billing systems in South Korea, but the new position closes the loophole that mattered most: even with alternative billing allowed, Google could still bar developers from simply linking out to their own website to sell digital goods.
The distinction is deliberate — steering restrictions are how a store keeps its commission even when alternatives technically exist. South Korea's regulator has been escalating steadily, from the billing mandate to ordering the stores to drop play-to-earn games, and later hitting Google with a ~$32M fine over Play exclusivity pressure.
First-order effects
- Korean Android developers can now direct users from inside their apps to external websites to buy digital goods, and Google can no longer block or penalize those links under the app payment law.
- Google loses the practical lever — anti-steering enforcement — that preserved Play commissions in South Korea even after it nominally permitted alternative billing systems.
Second-order effects
- Apple operates under the same Korean statute, so the external-link reading applies to the App Store too, forcing both platforms to choose between complying locally or fighting the interpretation.
- Developers who route purchases off-store put real transaction volume outside Google's billing system, sharpening the question of what Play's cut buys — a pressure point the $32M exclusivity fine already exposed.
Third-order effects
- If South Korea's sequence — mandate, clarification, fines — becomes the template, app-store payment terms shift from platform-set policy to regulated infrastructure, with other jurisdictions likely borrowing the external-link provision as the test of genuine openness.
- Store operators' leverage migrates from controlling the payment rail to competing on distribution and services, since commissions become contestable wherever steering bans fall.
The trend: App-store economics are moving from gatekeeper-set payment rules to government-mandated openness, with South Korea acting as both first mover and repeat enforcer.