The state antitrust regulator on Tuesday slapped a fine of around 42-point-one billion won, or some 31-point-eight million U.S. dollars, on Google and its regional units for restricting the content of local mobile game developers to release exclusively on Google Play.

The Fair Trade Commission(FTC) ordered the penalty, assessing that the U.S.-based global tech giant has abused its grip on the mobile app market to obstruct other companies' businesses and limit competition in violation of fair trade laws.

In its investigation between June 2016 and April 2018, the FTC found that Google proposed that the game companies exclusively release their content on Google Play in a bid to maintain control over the domestic app market.

The proposal came just after One Store, a locally developed app market, was launched in early 2016, which led Google to promise that the content would be promoted as "featured" on Google Play and support would be given for overseas expansion and marketing.

Likely aware of a potential violation of the fair trade rules, Google also ordered employees to delete related emails and to discuss issues offline to prevent traceable evidence.

Google's unlawful practices have helped the company expand its local app market share in terms of amount spent from around 80 percent in 2016 to over 90 percent in 2018. One Store's share, on the other hand, fell from almost 20 percent in 2016 to under ten percent in 2018.