South Korean Court Rules That Phone Bloatware Must Be Deletable

Posted by Soulskill on Friday January 24, 2014 @08:13AM from the get-off-my-phone dept.

_0x783czar writes "Starting this April, South Korea will require all phone vendors to allow pre-installed bloatware to be uninstalled. That's right, they will be able to get rid of all that pesky software without having to root their phones. According to press release by the Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning, 'The move aims to rectify an abnormal practice that causes inconvenience to smartphone users and causes unfair competition among industry players.' They hope this will also increase the users' data storage and battery life. From the article: 'Under the new guidelines, telcos are required to make most of their pre-installed apps deletable except for four necessary items related to Wi-Fi connectivity, near-field communication (NFC), the customer service center and the app store.' It'd be nice if similar legislation were passed in the U.S. and elsewhere."

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South Korean Government: by i+kan+reed · 2014-01-24 08:15 · Score: 5, Funny

Good on anti-trust enforcement.
Pretty damn stupid on fan-death enforcement.
Well that settles it by Anonymous Coward · 2014-01-24 08:23 · Score: 5, Insightful

The South Koreans are officially light years ahead of the US in terms of internet connectivity and smartphones.
What?! by Dachannien · 2014-01-24 08:41 · Score: 4, Funny

Separate Internet Explorer from Windows?! That's impossible!