Industry body Digital India Foundation Alliance (ADIF) has asked the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to seek temporary relief in response to Google’s upcoming PlayStore policy changes. In October 2020, Google had stated that it would postpone its new policy of mandating application developers to only use the Google Billing System (GBS).

This policy will take effect in March 2022, which means that application developers will rely on Google’s systems. This also means that a 30% commission will apply to all transactions in the Google Play store. ADIF stated in a statement that they have submitted a petition to CCI through their lawyers at Sarvada Legal and sought interim relief. CCI is already investigating this matter because Google may abuse its dominant position in the application market. Earlier, Apple had received similar petitions accusing it of violating antitrust laws on the issue of in-app payments and purchases.

The Apple petition was submitted by another group called “Together We Fight Society” According to ADIF, Google’s policy will require developers to pay 30% to the search giant, while other payment processing systems charge 2%. The organization stated that the new policy will “have a devastating impact on the operating profit margins of a large number of startups and make their business models infeasible.” “ADIF expects that unless this committee passes an order to maintain the status quo until the ongoing investigation is completed, Google will continue to enforce its terms on the Play Store, which will have adverse and irreversible consequences for the Indian startup startup ecosystem,” the number Sijo Kuruvilla George, executive director of the Alliance of Indian Foundations, said in a press statement.

ADIF stated in its petition that the policy will “have a negative impact on India’s digital ecosystem by reducing the choices available to application developers and users, and by destroying multiple cost structures and profit margins to harm the country’s innovation ecosystem. Catastrophic impact”. industry. ” The core issue for startups and app developers is to enforce the Google Play billing system and exclude other payment methods. “The problem is not the percentage of commissions charged, but the mandatory payment options and anti-competitive practices that force other payment providers to withdraw.

If left unchecked, such anti-competitive policies and gatekeeper commissions will be applied to more and more categories It has a catastrophic impact on competition and prices in India,” Murugavel Janakiraman, founder and CEO of Marriage.com, said in a statement. . CCI started to investigate Google’s paid apps and in-app purchase payment systems in November 2020. The committee initially believes that this policy is unfair because it limits the ability of application developers to choose payment processing systems.

News Source : The Indian Express