Istafa Ali
In the midst of an ongoing disagreement over service fee payments, Google has started to remove apps from 10 Indian companies, including popular matrimonial apps like Bharat matrimonial, according to Reuters.
This development coincides with ongoing protests by Indian startups over Google’s policies, especially with regard to its long-standing in-app fee policy.
“It’s a ‘dark day’ for India’s internet,” said Murugavel Janakiraman, the founder of Matrimony.com, expressing his concerns. One by one, our applications are being removed. It implies that every leading matrimonial service would be eliminated.” In India, matrimonial apps have become more and more popular. Bharat Matrimony, for example, has over 50 million downloads.
The case centres on attempts by Indian companies to oppose Google’s implementation of an in-app payment price that ranges from 11% to 26%, in response to demands from antitrust authorities to decommission an earlier system that charged between 15% and 30%. In spite of rulings in January and February that uphold Google’s authority to impose the fee or remove applications, talks between the internet behemoth and impacted businesses are still ongoing.
Google responded to the incident by notifying Info Edge, the company that makes the Jeevansathi app, and Matrimony.com of Play Store violations. After initially declining, Matrimony.com’s shares ended the day up 2.2%, while Info Edge also recovered their losses.
In a blog post, Google emphasised the need for equitable contributions by pointing out that these corporations had decided not to pay for a lengthy period of time.
The tech giant highlighted the dominance of its Android platform in the Indian market, where 94% of phones use Android, and claimed that allowing some developers to not pay created an unfair playing field.
This action is reminiscent to previous ones taken by Google, including the brief removal of the well-known Indian payments app Paytm from the Play Store in 2020. In one of Google’s fastest-growing areas, the prolonged conflict raises concerns about the connection between Internet giants and developers.
