Recent news: Japan Enacts Regulatory Law that targets Apple and Google Smartphone Marketplace Dominance -

Japan has been the most recent nation to pass regulations which aim at companies such as Apple Inc. and Google LLC from limiting third-party firms that would like to promote and distribute their own software on Google as well as Apple devices.

According to Kyodo News, "The law prohibits the developers of Apple's iOS and Google's Android smartphones operating systems, app stores, and payment platforms from preventing the selling of applications and services directly competing with the native platform's." This will ensure that the platforms' providers are kept free of "gatekeeping" and also to force more competition between their own apps and others on the platforms.

The current Japan antimonopoly law has penalties of up to 6% on the profits earned through anticompetitive tactics. Sanctions in the latest specific law are 20% of domestic profits generated from services that violate the laws which can be increased to 30percent if violations aren't stopped.

The new law is scheduled to take effect at the end of 2025 The law is, as Kyodo News points out is similar to one of the EU's most recent rules (presumably it's the Europe's Digital Markets Act).

Kyodo News also reports that both Apple and Google have issued announcements regarding their ongoing involvement in discussions with Japanese regulators.

The previous report by Kyodo News regarding the regulation that was first approved by Japan's Cabinet declared that they had decided to pass the law as "a attempt to challenge the duopoly exerted by two industry majors Apple Inc. as well as Google LLC," and that this regulation shows the Japanese government's intention to join with the EU by enacting further rules "of Big Tech firms such as Apple, Google and Amazon.com Inc. and Google LLC, who are now able to exercise an enormous influence on the digital service all over the world."

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Katie Stephan Katie Stephan is the Senior Content Strategist at . In addition to her many years of experience in the field as well, she holds an MFA in creative nonfiction writing and has served communities in her area as a writer's instructor at a local college.

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