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Apple, Google app stores and video game developers face scrutiny in ACCC's big tech crackdown

Video game developers and app-store market places will face new consumer-law scrutiny over pricing in the coming year, as the ACCC awaits new competition powers.

Laurel Henning
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Australians have spent $3.4 billion over the last year in in-app payments, according to the ACCC. Shutterstock.

If there were a sign that the persistently calm head of the competition and consumer regulator, Gina Cass-Gottlieb, were feeling impatient, her focus on app stores could be the tell.

It's more than a year since the competition and consumer regulator said it needed a raft of industry codes and measures to tackle the market power of Big Tech companies, including in relation to Apple and Google's app stores.

Just last week, Cass-Gottlieb wrote an op-ed in the Australian Financial Review urging the government to bring forward the competition-law changes it recommended in 2022.

While it waits for competition law updates, the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission has outlined its priorities for the coming year, with a new way to tackle app stores via consumer law.