Edited on June 18, 2026. The 2019 guidelines this piece tracks went on to become Japan's 2020 Act on Improving Transparency and Fairness of Digital Platforms (施行 June 2021) and the broader 2024 Smartphone Act (Mobile Software Competition Act), enacted June 2024 with substantive provisions taking effect December 2025.
Japan has begun drafting guidelines that will introduce more regulation into the U.S. tech-giant-dominated domestic digital market. The goal: weave together the protection of competition and the protection of user privacy into a set of regulations that addresses both.
The proposed guidelines are being drafted by Japan's Fair Trade Commission (JFTC) and went up for public debate in September 2019. The push for broader regulation came in response to calls to prevent Google, Amazon, Meta (then Facebook), and Apple from abusing user data they had been collecting for years — and exploiting the market advantage that practice produced. The guidelines applied to firms providing online shopping, social media, search engines, and video, music, and app distribution.
This was the first time an antimonopoly law would be applied to business practices between a company and customers to protect consumer privacy.
The drafting followed calls from Japan's ruling Liberal Democratic Party for the government to impose tougher rules on technology giants and force them to improve their privacy policies and clarify the terms of transactions with smaller vendors. The explicit goal: protecting consumers — and making room for smaller players in the market.
The 2019 piece also tracked the introduction of "superior bargaining position" doctrine, applied to situations where a user is required to provide personal data to use one of the dominant online services or platforms targeted by the bill. Major companies would be required to notify users, manage their data "properly," or face accusations of unfair trade practices.
This was not the first time Japan had sought to curb the ability of big tech to monopolize access to user data. In 2017, the Japan Fair Trade Commission considered designating the use of a dominant market position to collect and monopolize personal data as an antitrust violation.
What Happened Next: The 2020–2025 Implementation
The 2019 guidelines produced two pieces of substantive law:
Act on Improving Transparency and Fairness of Digital Platforms (2020). Enacted May 2020 and effective from February 2021, the Transparency Act covers large online malls, app stores, and digital advertising platforms. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) requires annual disclosure and reporting from designated operators including Amazon Japan, Rakuten, Yahoo (LY Corporation), Apple iTunes, and Google Play.
Mobile Software Competition Act (2024). Enacted June 12, 2024, with substantive provisions taking effect December 18, 2025. Often called Japan's "Smartphone Act," the law is modeled on the EU's Digital Markets Act and targets the mobile operating system, app store, browser engine, and search-services layers controlled by Apple and Google. It prohibits self-preferencing, mandates third-party app-store distribution on iOS, and requires interoperability between competing browser engines.
The JFTC enforcement record. Japan's Fair Trade Commission opened formal investigations into Google's search-deal practices in 2024, with a cease-and-desist order issued in April 2025 — the first major Japanese antitrust enforcement action against a U.S. tech giant under the post-2019 framework.
Japan's 2019 drafting set the regulatory stage. The EU's Digital Markets Act (2022) and Digital Services Act (2022), the UK's Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act (2024), Australia's News Media Bargaining Code (2021), and South Korea's 2021 Telecommunications Business Act amendment all built on or paralleled the framework Japan introduced. The U.S. lawsuits — the DOJ's 2020 Google search case (won 2024) and the FTC's 2020 Meta antitrust case — operate in the same regulatory generation.
The 2019 thesis — antitrust law extending into the company-customer relationship to protect consumer data — is now the international baseline.
Written by
EPR Editorial Team
The Everything-PR Editorial Team produces original reporting, research, and analysis on communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question. Publishing since 2009.
