Google Inc, according to sources, is offering ten key developers, whose apps have been delisted from Play Store, a compromise solution. Under the plan, Google will re-list the apps on Play Store for free, provided any transaction on it does not take place through Google’s payment platform. The deal has been taken by Info Edge.
The apps can, however, undertake the transaction through their own respective websites. And they do not have to pay the 11 per cent to 30 per cent share of their digital revenues. Google will continue to distribute the apps through the app store.
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However, if they want to list on the Play Store as well as use Google’s payment platform, they have to fork out between 11 per cent to 30 per cent, which is part of the commercial agreement. According to sources, most of the developers have already accepted the plan.
The move comes after Google said yesterday that they will remove apps of 10 developers from its Play Store for not complying with the user choice billing system.
Amongst those impacted include Shaadi, Bharat Matrimony, Naukri.com, 99 acres, amongst others. Sanjeev Bikhchandani, founder of Info Edge, today said that for them, the app in contention was only Jeevansathi.com, and they complied on it on February 9th, but it did not receive any notice from Google about any other app being non-compliant. Yet, two of them, 99 acres and Naukri, were also deleted.
According to sources who are aware of the development, the proposal will also be discussed in a meeting which has been called by Communications Minister Ashwani Vaishnaw next week on the contentious issue. Vaishnaw, who intervened on the issue, made it clear that India is very clear of its policy that startups will get the protection that they need, and this kind of delisting cannot be permitted.
Sources close to the issue say that on February, after a Supreme Court order did not grant any interim relief to the petitioners, which included startups against delisting the apps – the US company decided to start the process of doing so, which was implemented only a few weeks later, only in the first week of March. The commission on the digital revenue also included 4 per cent for transactions that happened on the Google platform.
However, sources say some of the erring developers have already come back on the platform through the zero-payment option which Google has offered. The company has also promised that the change of status of the app to the new option would be undertaken very quickly so that developers do not get impacted.
Sources say that Google, in its discussions with the developers, has also pointed out that many of these developers have been paying commissions on a competing app store but have made no complaints about them.
