Ten Indian businesses, including “many well-established” brands it withheld, according to Google, had broken Google Play Store rules.
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After announcing earlier in the day that it would take action against developers who have consistently disregarded its billing policies, Google started removing some apps marriage apps from the Play Store in India on Friday. This was a decisive step on a three-year issue in the country that is home to the majority of the company’s user base. Ten businesses in the nation, including “many well-established” names that Google would not reveal, had benefited from the platform without having to pay fees, according to Google.
The Alphabet-owned Android manufacturer stated that a tiny team of Indian developers had over three years to be ready and adhere to the Play Store’s payment policy, but they chose not to. According to Google, these businesses nevertheless abide by the payment guidelines of other app shops.
On Friday, Google began to remove a few of the apps. On Friday, a few Android apps from the matchmaking websites Shaadi, Matrimony.com, and Bharat Matrimony were removed from the Play Store. Alt Balaji’s dating service and Altt Quack Quack vanished from the Play Store as well.
CEO of Bharat Matrimony, Murugavel Janakiraman View Marriage Apps Removal
The CEO of Bharat Matrimony, Murugavel Janakiraman, stated that Google has removed roughly ten of the apps developed by the Indian company from the store. He told team TechCrunch that Bharat Matrimony is considering its legal options and that he thinks Google disregarded an Indian antitrust watchdog’s ruling by removing the apps today. He went on, calling it a “dark day for the India internet.”
The powerful industry group IAMAI, which represents some of the biggest international companies and Indian startups, said in a statement that it had counselled Google, one of IAMAI’s members, not to remove any apps from Google Play. At least four of the group’s members received notifications from Google, according to the trade association.
Google Statement
In a blog post, Google stated, “We are taking necessary steps to ensure our policies are applied consistently across the ecosystem, as we do for any form of policy violation globally, after giving these developers more than three years to prepare, including three weeks after the Supreme Court’s order.” “When necessary, enforcement of our policy may involve removing non-compliant apps from Google Play.”
In recent years, over a dozen Indian businesses have filed challenges against Google’s Play Store billing policies, claiming that Google charges excessively high prices for the services it offers. Several companies, including Unacademy, Kuku FM, Alt Digital Media, Info Edge and marriage apps like Bharat Matrimony, Shadi.com —an Indian internet tech company known for running the well-known job recruitment platform Naukri—filed applications with the Madras High Court. In India, Google’s policy has also been contested by Disney’s Hotstar and Tinder.
Info Edge Founder, Sanjeev Bikhchandani View
The founder of Info Edge, Sanjeev Bikhchandani, told team TechCrunch that his company received a notification from Google stating that non-compliant companies would be removed from the list. He also mentioned that Info Edge complies with Google policies.
Since the Supreme Court’s order was released on February 9th, we have complied with it. We do not have any outstanding Google invoices, he continued.
Google has made significant foreign investments in India over the last ten years, and the country currently hosts more than half a billion users. According to the business, as of Friday, the Android and Play Store ecosystems supported over 2.5 million employees in India together in 2022, with just 3% of Indian developers required to pay a service charge. According to the corporation, fees above fifteen per cent apply to less than fifty developers in India.
Google’s statement on Friday comes after the Madras High Court dismissed appeals against Google’s new user-choice billing structure that were filed by a number of Indian IT companies in January.
“We have always complied with local laws.” Google stated in the blog post that “no court or regulator has denied Google Play’s right to charge for the value and services we provide for years.” The Supreme Court declined to impede our ability to do so on February 9th as well. While some of the developers who were turned down for temporary protection have begun to engage fairly in our ecosystem and economic model, others have decided to avoid doing so.
In the blog post, Google claimed that other apps and games are at a “competitive disadvantage” and that an “unfair playing field across the ecosystem” is being created by the small number of developers who are not paying the price to use the Play Store.
Google said that the select few developers have two options: they can work with other app stores to maintain the Android ecosystem’s continuity, or they can resubmit their apps while adhering to the restrictions.
Developers must choose from among Google Play’s three billion options in order to submit their apps to the Play Store: offering an alternative billing system, which lowers the developer’s fee, integrating Google Play’s billing system (where the developer agrees to pay Google the long-standing fee), or consumption-only basis without paying a service fee.
The article was updated to reflect the removal of the Android apps for the dating services Quack Quack, Shaadi, Alt Balaji’s Altt, Jodii, and Matrimony.com from the Play Store.