Google on Wednesday defended its position on the Play Store service fee for developers and its stance on user choice billing policy, saying Google Play’s service fees are actually the lowest among major app stores. .
Google estimates that fewer than 60 of the more than 200,000 Indian developers on Google Play could currently pay a service fee of more than 15 percent.
“This fee is further reduced by 4 percent if a user pays through an alternative billing system,” the company said in a blog post.
The tech giant said that only 3 percent of developers in India sell digital goods or services and would therefore have to pay a service fee.
“For the vast majority of developers, service fees are 15 percent or less due to the variety of pricing programs Google Play offers,” the company said.
Last week, the ICC ordered an investigation into Google’s alleged non-compliance related to its order regarding the Play Store’s user choice billing policy.
In October 2022, the ICC imposed a fine of Rs 936.44 crore on Google for abusing its dominant position regarding its Play Store policies.
The market regulator sanctioned Google for engaging in unfair practices and ordered the company to follow certain corrective measures in this regard.
The Alliance of Digital India Foundation (ADIF) has approached the ICC over Google’s breach and the market regulator last week ordered an investigation into the alleged breach by the tech giant.
Google said it was “respectfully following the ICC’s October 2022 order, and pursuant to that order, we’ve extended user choice billing to all developers in India and updated our policy effective 26 October.” April 2023.
The company said it is now informing developers in the country who have not yet implemented one of the three available billing options that it will take steps to ensure its policy is applied fairly.
Once notified, the developer will have two weeks to make any necessary changes to their apps based on our policy requirements.
“We remain committed to the success of the Indian app ecosystem and hope that Google Play will enrich the lives of more users by connecting them with useful apps, enabling more developers to build sustainable global businesses,” the company said.
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