Sophie Blake
Following a recent ruling by India’s competition regulator, Google announced that it has halted the enforcement of its Play Store billing policy in the country, which requires developers to pay up to 30% for in-app purchases.
The tech giant updated the support page for its payments policy on Tuesday adding the details of the new change and saying that the requirement still applies for in-app digital content purchases for users outside of the country.
The announcement arrives days after the Competition Commission of India ordered Google to let app developers use alternative payment systems and fined it $113 million for abusing its market power. The country also issued a fine of $161.9 million on the company the previous week for being anti-competitive in the Android mobile device market.
‘’Following the CCI’s recent ruling, we are pausing enforcement of the requirement for developers to use Google Play’s billing system for the purchase of digital goods and services for transactions by users in India while we review our legal options and ensure we can continue to invest in Android and Play,’’ the company says in the updated page.
India is not the only country that has taken action against Google’s mandatory billing system.
A bill requiring Google and Apple to allow developers to use alternative payment systems was approved by the South Korean parliament last year. Following the bill, the company announced that it would allow developers to do so.
It is also currently testing a pilot program named ‘’User Choice Billing’’ which has been recently expanded to Australia, India, Indonesia and Japan, allowing app developers to integrate alternative billing systems.
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