"One Store Minor Payment, Inadequate Parental Consent Process... Worse Than Google and Apple"

Minor Transaction Amounts Reach 420 Million Won in the First Half of the Year

[Asia Economy Reporter Cha Min-young] Due to COVID-19, the payment amount by minors on the domestic application (app) market One Store has increased significantly, but efforts to prevent indiscriminate payments by minors have been found to be insufficient.

According to data submitted by the Korea Communications Commission on the 4th to Assemblyman Jo Seung-rae of the National Assembly's Science, Technology, Information and Broadcasting Committee, the transaction amount by minors on One Store increased every year from 350 million KRW in 2019 to 560 million KRW in 2020, and 420 million KRW in the first half of 2021 (January to June). On an annualized basis, this represents a 50% increase, surpassing the overall transaction growth rate of One Store (about 25%) during the same period.

This is pointed out to be because One Store's parental consent mechanism for minor payments is weaker compared to competitors. One Store informs that if a legal guardian gives consent for a minor's paid purchase 'only once initially,' the payment consent period lasts until the child member withdraws from One Store. Once parents give consent for a paid purchase for the first time, the minor child can continue making paid purchases without any additional parental consent procedures.

In contrast, Google Play Store and Apple App Store require parental approval each time a minor child makes a paid content purchase through features such as family groups (sharing).

Until the first half of this year, One Store only had a legal guardian consent procedure for membership registration and no consent procedure for paid purchases, but recently established a one-time initial payment consent procedure.

Assemblyman Jo Seung-rae said, “Refund complaints due to excessive mobile phone payments by minors are frequent, but preventive measures by businesses that profit from this are still lacking,” and added, “To maintain a healthy mobile ecosystem, businesses should make voluntary efforts and the government should consider legal and institutional support.”

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.