Prerana Toshniwal, Pune
In the recent development, Google to temporarily reinstate all the 250 delisted Indian apps “in spirit of cooperation” by removing in-app payment options with either consumption-only basis or by redirecting the payments to the apps websites. This comes after multiple discussions between the Indian government and Google.
In their statement, Google said, “in the spirit of cooperation, we are temporarily reinstating the apps of the developers with appeals pending in the Supreme Court.” In the statement, they said that Google maintains its right to implement and enforce its business model as it has been established in various courts. It further said that Google would invoice their full applicable services fees in the interim and that they would extend payment timelines for these companies. It also stated that Google looked forward “to a collaborative effort to find solutions that respect the needs of all parties.”
After non-compliance from some Indian app developers, Google had delisted them. This included famous apps like Shaadi.com, 99 acres, Kuku FM, Bharat Matrimony, Naukri.com and ALTT among other apps. Founders of these apps like Anupam Mittal (Founder, Shaadi.com) and Lal Chand Bisu (Co-Founder, Kuku FM) took to their respective X and Linkedin handles to talk about this. While Anupam Mittal asked this “Digital East India Company” to stop the ‘Lagaan’, Lal Chand Bisu called Google “the most evil company for businesses” and also said that India’s startup system is completely controlled by Google.
In view of this, the Payments Council of India urged the Indian Government to intervene and amend IT laws to protect startups and payment aggregators from Google and other multinational companies’ monopolistic policies.
Union IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw had invited representatives from Google for a meeting on Monday, 4th March. He was hoping Google would be in its approach considering the large, growing startup ecosystem in India.
After this, Google had reinstated some apps but it was not necessarily due to Government intervention. This was either after the apps agreed to comply with the payment policies or on a ‘consumption only’ basis removing the in-app payments.
For the uninitiated, Google had delisted 10 Indian App Developers from Google Playstore on Friday, 1st March over non-compliance with Google’s payment policies. Google, initially, had mandated in-app payments through its own payment platform and it would charge a commission between 15-30% for these payments as ‘service fee’.