The Indian Technology Startup Association Atmanirbhar Digital India Foundation (ADIF) is planning to contact the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to oppose Google’s proposed application makers to impose a 15% tax on in-app purchases of digital goods. app Store.

The association also wrote to the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY) seeking its intervention in this matter. ADIF’s executive committee was formally established in January and is composed of investors, startup founders and CEOs, such as Murugavel Janakiraman of Bharat Matrimony, Snehil Khanor of TrulyMadly, Ritesh Mallik of Innov8, Ajay Data of Data XGen Technologies, and SHEROES’s The Indian quotient of Sairee Chahal and Anand Lunia. ADIF is a small group of large startups disappointed by Google and its Play Store policies, as well as other large technology companies with widespread influence.

The core goal of the association is to become the representative body of the Indian entrepreneurial ecosystem, express their concerns to the government and regulators, and play a role in shaping the industry’s policy framework. “This kind of monopoly must stop. All we want is to provide a level playing field for Indian startups. It is only natural that CCI will have to intervene,” ADIF Secretary-General Ajay Data told ET, which first reported on this development . Earlier this month, Google proposed to app makers to halve the commission for users to make purchases in apps distributed by Play.

Google cut the commission from 30% to 15%, which only applies to the first $1 million that developers earn each year. The remaining income will be charged a 30% service fee. According to Google, the drop in service fees will have a positive impact on 99% of developers worldwide. The company claims that the money saved can help developers to scale up at a critical stage of development through recruitment or marketing. “Although these investments are most critical when developers are in the early stages of growth, once the partner’s revenue reaches 1 million US dollars, the expansion of the application will not stop-we heard from the partners 2 million US dollars, 5 million US dollars or even 10 US dollars Mn a year, their services are still on the road to self-sustaining track.

This is why we want to use the Play billing system for each Play developer (regardless of size) earns the top 100 each year Ten thousand dollars in total revenue provide this reduced cost,” the company claims. Indian technology entrepreneurs claim that Google charges a 15% commission and does not allow app makers to use any other payment gateways. As we all know, these payment gateways charge much lower service fees, which is an abuse of its monopoly. Last week, in a counter-testimony submitted to the Delhi High Court, the Indian government asked the court to prevent WhatsApp from launching its controversial new privacy policy update, which angered several data privacy experts.

News Source : INC42