After being accused of abusing the Play Store’s dominant position by India’s antitrust authorities, Google is now facing a new nine-figure penalties. The regulatory body ordered Google to pay 9.36 billion rupees ($113.5 million) and to let Play Store developers to accept payments from other sources for in-app and app purchases.
According to TechCrunch, the Competition Commission of India concluded after a protracted investigation that Google’s demand that Play Store developers utilise its billing system “constitutes an imposition of unfair condition.” According to the authority, Google’s failure to use the billing system for its own apps amounted to the “imposition of discriminatory criteria.” The FCC has given Google three months to allow third-party payments on the Play Store. Google was told not to impose any anti-steering rules on app developers and not to prevent them from marketing their products to users. The business cannot prevent users from using the services and features provided by developers.
The Competition Commission further ruled that Google cannot impose any requirements on Play Store developers that are “unfair, arbitrary, discriminatory, or disproportionate to the services supplied to the app developers” and that it must be completely honest with them. A clear and open data collection policy will also be required from Google, and the company would not be permitted to exploit “competitively relevant transaction/ consumer data of apps generated and acquired” through the Google Play Billing system.
The regulator has found that Google holds a dominating position in the fields of “non-OS specific” mobile web browsers, app stores, web search, video hosting platforms, and licensable smartphone operating systems. The Competition Commission penalised the business $161.9 million last week for abusing Google’s dominance of Android. It said that smartphone manufacturers shouldn’t be required to preinstall Google apps and that the corporation shouldn’t deny other parties access to Play Services APIs or financial or other incentives. According to reports, Google owns 97 percent of the Indian smartphone market, and Google Play is one of the most widely used payment options. In terms of users, India is the company’s biggest market. TechCrunch was informed by Google that its legal department was examining the most recent judgement.