Nuked Match Group, the company behind popular dating apps such as Tinder, match, is suing Google over its restrictive billing policies on the play store. In its complaint, match group claims Google’illegally monopolized the market for distributing apps’ on Android by forcing apps to use Google’s own billing system and then taking a cut of the payments.
Lawsuit claims Apple demanded a 30 percent commission on in-app purchases in the iOS app store. Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rodgers was particularly skeptical of the payment monopoly claims.
Google said it always required certain types of in-app payments to be carried out through its billing system. This, of course, lets Google collect up to a 30 percent commission. Google did, however, slash that percentage to 15 percent for the first $ 1 million a developer makes in March 2021.
Google lured app developers to its platform with assurances that we could offer users a choice over how to pay for the services they want. Match group’s complaint:’Google sought to ban alternative in-app payment processing services so it could take a cut of nearly every in-app transaction on Android’.
Match group claims Google wants to impose a so-called app store’tax’ that it says’comes out of the pockets of consumers in the form of higher prices and the revenue that app developers would and should otherwise earn for the sale of their services’.
Match group is a part of the coalition of app fairness. Its goal is to fight policies it deems anticompetitive. Google announced in March that it will start testing a way for Android developers to use their own payment systems.
Google spokesperson Dan Jackson issued a statement in response to match group’s complaint. The Google spokesperson issued the statement saying that match group was filing a complaint.
Match group’s apps are eligible to pay just 15 % on Google play for digital subscriptions. But Android’s openness still provides them multiple ways of distributing their apps to Android users.
Us lawmakers are tackling the issue of in-app payments with the open app markets app. If signed into law, it will let developers use their own billing systems, as well as change other potentially anticompetitive behavior waged by Apple and Google.
The Netherlands is still engaged in a seemingly never-ending legal battle with Apple over its policies that block third-party payment processors for Dutch dating apps. In addition, South Korea passed a bill requiring Apple and Google to allow developers to use other billing services on their apps.
