What's the news: The Indonesia Competition Commission (ICC/KPPU) on September 16 launched an investigation into the Google Play Store based on allegations that Google is "engaging in monopolistic practices and unfair business competition such as abuse of dominant position, conditional sales (tying), and discriminatory practices." Why does this matter: Indonesia now joins India, the US, the UK, the EU, Japan, South Korea, and a few others in targeting Google Play Store either through regulations or antitrust investigations. While Google has made some significant concessions in recent months, including allowing third-party billing systems for certain apps in India and Indonesia, among other countries, this hasn't stopped scrutiny, and the list of regulators targeting the company only gets longer every month. This foreshadows that more significant changes are likely to take place to how app stores function in the future either because of voluntary changes or government-mandated actions. Why is Indonesia investigating Google Play Store: No substitute for Google Play Store: ICC found that "Google Play Store is the largest application distribution platform in Indonesia with a market share of 93% (ninety-three percent). There are several other platforms that also distribute apps (such as the Galaxy Store, Mi Store, or Huawei App Gallery), but they are not perfect substitutes for the Google Play Store. For developers or application developers, the Google Play Store is difficult to substitute because the majority of end users or consumers in Indonesia download their applications using the Google Play Store." Mandatory use of Google billing: The regulator noted that Google…
