The App Fee Conundrum

Billing policies of Google's Play Store have been a bone of contention with developers for long, but there doesn't seem to be any solutions in sight yet

- DANNY D'CRUZE

A LONG-STANDING CONFLICT has pitted some of India’s most prominent start-ups against global tech giants. The bone of contention? The high share of revenue charged by Google Play Store and Apple App Store. Recently, apps of some well-known Indian brands like Info Edge (including the apps Naukri and 99acres), BharatMatrimony, Truly Madly and Kuku FM were removed from the Google Play Store for not complying with the tech giant’s billing policies. It sparked outrage from the country’s developers with the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) labelling this action as “unfair and disproportionate”.

Google later agreed to reinstate the delisted apps after Ashwini Vaishnaw, Union Minister of Railways, Communications, Electronics, and IT, got the tech giant and Indian start-ups to the negotiating table. But the company made it clear that it “maintains its right to implement and enforce its business model,” citing various court orders that were made in its favour.

Developers’ discontent with Google’s billing policies have been simmering since 2020, when Google announced that it would start enforcing its billing policies— including levying a fee of 30% on financial transactions made on the Play Store—from the next year, till when developers had time to comply with the policies. Later, after protests from Indian developers, Google delayed enforcing its billing policies and brought the fee down to 12-26%.