Following pressure from the industry bodies, stalwarts and IT Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw, Google has initiated the process of reinstating Indian mobile apps removed from the Play Store. The decision followed a meeting between company officials and the minister
On Friday, Google’s removal of apps from 10 Indian companies, including Bharatmatrimony, Shaadi, 99acres, KukuFm, Stage and Naukri, stirred controversy in its rapidly growing market. The conflict centers on Google’s fees of 11% to 26% on in-app payments, a point of contention for Indian startups protesting perceived unfair practices by the U.S. tech giant in one of its dominant markets where 94% of phones operate on the Android platform.
In 2020, Google temporarily delisted the popular Indian payments app Paytm from the Play Store, citing policy violations. This action prompted the founder and the broader startup industry to unite, challenging Google by creating their own app stores and pursuing legal cases.
IT and Telecom Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on March 2nd said that such delisting cannot be permitted. “Government takes a strong view of Google delisting some apps from the Play Store. We will not allow delisting of apps,” Vaishnaw told PTI.
Earlier, Murugavel Janakiraman, Founder & CEO – Matrimony.com expressed his displeasure condemning Google’s highhanded behavior stating that It is a dark day for Indian digital startups. His Linked post added, “Today Google deleted popular Indian apps from the play store citing Google play billing system (GBPS). They deleted all our apps over 100 including BharatMatrimony, TamilMatrimony, MarathiMatrimony, Jodii, etc.
Google tried to implement GBPS a few years ago where it fored digital services apps to use their billing system and pay 15% or 30% of revenue compared to less than 2% what apps pay for using other payment gateways. We went to CCI and CCI levied Rs. 936 CR penally on Google.”
“Google says 200000+ apps accepted their policy, does anyone has option? Most of the apps are anyway free. I’ll share the postings of how commercial app developers are forced to accept Google policy. Either accept or get deleted. It is not that Google doesn’t make money thru playstore. Apps spend 20-50% of revenue on Google. What we built in 20+ years got removed by Google in a single action” he added.
Anupam Mittal, Founder & CEO, People Group (Shaadi.com) said, “In a blatant violation of the CCI order, Google has delisted some of the most well-known apps in India without any fore-warning. While there was a SC judgement on Feb 9th denying interim relief, the least that was expected from Google was to send a notice to developers. Now they are setting the narrative that they are doing this to be fair to other app developers. Amazing how quickly they went from ‘Don’t be evil’ to hallucinating like the Gen AI Gemini that they have built. This is indeed a dark day for India’s economy and its future. The govt needs to intervene now and direct CCI to ensure Google is in compliance with their order and immediately restore all apps that were delisted including Shaadi.com. In any event CCI is hearing the matter so what’s the urgency to delist? Shows the arrogance and impunity with which they operate.”
Digital Strategy Consultant Uday Sodhi said, “Google misusing their monopoly over the mobile operating system. The CCI needs to intervene and GOI needs to act. Android needs to allow the download of other app marketplaces. Both Apple and Google need to allow open market access to all payment systems and all other app marketplaces.
