S. Korea to charge fine on Apple

South Korea's telecom regulator said Wednesday it decided to charge a fine on the local unit of the U.S. -based electronics giant Apple for illegal collection of location data.The Korea Communications Commission (KCC) decided to impose a penalty of 3 million won (2,837 U.S. dollars) on Apple Korea as the U.S. tech giant collected location information from its iPhone and IPad users without their consent.The administrative move was the first time that a government levied a fine against Apple after judging the collection of location data was illegal.According the KCC, Apple violated the nation's law for location information protection by collecting location data from some iPhone users even after the users turn off the location-related services.Under the law, telecom operators should receive consent from phone users in advance if the operators want to collect, use and offer their location information. Location data-related files should also be encoded and protected.Meanwhile, the KCC ordered Apple Korea along with Google Korea to make appropriate correction to their practices related with collection of location data.The regulator said Google Korea did not collect illegally location information, but did not encrypt and protect location data-related files, which are stored in mobile phones temporarily. The KCC, however, did not fine on Google.