Google details compliance with South Korean IAP billing law

Apple and Google have both been under considerable fire for their less-than-popular in-app purchase systems for the past few months. South Korea launched a fairly substantial assault against the pair recently.

Back in August, the South Korean government passed a law that forces both parties to allow developers to process in-app purchases through third-party billing systems, rather than through its proprietary system. Google explained how it would make that work today. 

Google falls inline

Google’s solution to comply with the new law is pretty simple. In a mockup, we can see a “Choose how to check out” page that lets users choose between the company’s in-house billing system or a dev’s third-party system when making an in-app purchase. 

Apps using third-party systems will still be subjected to Play Store service fees, but will pay 4% less than before due to the extra costs incurred to do so.

For example, as outlined in a statement to 9to5Google, the majority of developers fork out over 15% of their revenue generated by in-app purchases. If they opt for an alternative billing system, this will be brought down to 11%.

The tech goliath says this goes towards application distribution, developer tools, security services and more. In essence, it outlines it as a sort of upkeep cost.

Google also reiterates what it (and Apple) has said about alternative billing systems in the past: that they’re not as safe as the in-house platform. In its unbiased opinion. Riiight. 

Now, the image provided is still just a mock-up so it could change at some point. Implementation details will apparently be provided to developers later down the line.