Japan: Fair Trade Commission and Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry opened consultation on draft guidelines on Act on Promoting Competition Regarding Specific Software Used in Smartphones (Act No. 58 of 2024)

On 15 May 2025, the Japan Fair Trade Commission and the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry opened a public consultation on draft guidelines on the Act on Promoting Competition Regarding Specific Software Used in Smartphones (Act No. 58 of 2024) until 13 June 2025. The guidelines clarify how Articles 5-13 of the Act will be interpreted and applied. Article 5 prohibits operating system, app store, or browser providers from using non-public data from third-party service and product providers to compete against them. Article 6 prohibits discriminatory treatment of app developers, broadly defined as a business operator taking a different approach to the app business operator than themselves in a way that treats them unfavourably. Article 7 prohibits businesses from favouring its own operating system(s), and provides the example of restricting their products to prevent users from accessing third-party app stores, as well as barring the restriction of competitor access to operating system features such as APIs. Article 8 prohibits App Store operators from forcing the exclusive use of proprietary payment systems or from blocking webpages of competing products. Article 9 prohibits search engine bias. Article 10 mandates that designated business operators (involved in basic operating software, app stores, or browsers) disclose the conditions under which they acquire and use data from individual app operators or website operators. Article 11 mandates that businesses maintain data interoperability for users who wish to switch devices to that of a competitor. Article 12 requires designated business operators to enable easy default setting changes for tools such as browsers or search apps and to show multiple competing apps when users search for a tool. Article 13 requires designated business operators to disclose specifications/conditions transparently and allow reasonable response time for changes.