Startups limits the Deferment of the Billing Policy by Google

Google’s move to postpone its billing policy by six months in India till March 22 is not the solution, internet companies and domestic start-ups said they will continue chasing external remedies with the regulators and government. Also, the development comes after several Indian start-ups voiced their infuriation against Google over the company’s requirement that apps compulsorily use the Play Store‘s billing system for in-app purchases of digital goods. Paytm, which keeps pace with Google’s digital payments application GPay, on Sunday introduced its own ‘mini-app’ store to support Indian developers.

Meanwhile, Purnima Kochikar, Google Play director of business development said in a blog post, “First and foremost, we want to reiterate that we are deeply committed to the success of the Indian ecosystem. She added, “We do not succeed unless and until our partners succeed and we will be setting up policy workshops to help clear any additional questions about our play store policies.”

However, Google had explicated saying gaming, education, and other content apps should use its billing system in India for in-app purchases as long as the apps are allocated through its Play Store. So, this instigated another debate over Google’s influence, whose AOS (Android Operating System) controls over 95% of smartphones in India.

Google is providing its dominance and its huge monopoly power on India’s digital ecosystem” adding that with the new 30% commission policy start-ups may spend up to 50% of the capital they raise on Facebook and Google said CEO Vijay Shekhar Sharma (Paytm founder). He also added by saying that Google’s “policies are arbitrary and the deployment is even more arbitrary”.