Google asks Indian app developers to deploy one of three billing options within two weeks

“Google is now informing developers in the country who have not yet implemented one of the three billing options available that it will be taking necessary steps to ensure its policy is applied fairly,” the company said in a statement.

The company also said that if app developers did not implement one of the three billing systems within two weeks of being notified, it could take enforcement action against the developers, including removal of their apps from Google Play Store.

This comes at a time when Indian startups represented by the Alliance of Digital India Foundation (ADIF) have filed complaints with the Competition Commission of India (CCI) over Google’s user-choice billing system, through which the company will charge 11-26% commission on in-app purchases made by users of the app.

The antitrust regulator is currently hearing the complaints, and ordered an inquiry into Google’s implementation of the new billing system last week.

In a blog post, Google has said that the three billing options available to developers will be: the Google Play Billing System (GPBS), the user-choice billing (UCB) system, and the consumption-only system.

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The GPBS was initially proposed by Google as the sole in-app purchase billing option, but the CCI, in its October 2022 order against the company, said that it could not mandate developers use the system, which charged a 15-30% commission. Following this, Google brought in the UCB system, under which developers could provide users with alternative payment options such as card payments, wallets, net banking, UPI, etc in addition to Google’s system, and payments made through these modes would attract a commission in the range of 11-26%.

What Google said

In the blog post published on Wednesday, Google noted: “Our service fees only apply when a developer sells digital goods or services in their app. Today, only 3% of developers in India sell digital goods or services and therefore would need to pay a service fee”.

“For the vast majority of developers, our fees are 15% or less — the lowest rates of any major app store — due to the range of pricing programs Google Play offers. To further put this in context, we estimate less than 60 of the over 200,000 Indian developers on Google Play currently could pay a service fee of above 15%. And this fee is further reduced by 4% if a user pays through an alternative billing system to fairly reflect that Google Play’s billing system has not been used,” it added.

Under the third billing option, Google said developers could operate on a consumption-only basis without paying a service fee, even if it is part of a paid service. “With this option, any developer could allow a user to login when the app opens and access content paid for somewhere else,” it said.

The ADIF, which represents Indian startups such as Paytm, Matrimony, TrulyMadly and MapmyIndia, had earlier argued that the UCB was anticompetitive, and in addition to the commission, mandated developers to also share the transaction data of payments made through modes other than Google.

Last October, the CCI had issued two orders against Google for engaging in anticompetitive practices and asked it to change certain aspects of how it operated the Android mobile operating system. The regulator had also fined Google Rs 2,275 crore in the two orders.

“Google is respectfully following the CCI’s October 2022 order, and in compliance with that order, expanded user choice billing to all developers in India and updated Play’s payments policy that went into effect starting April 26, 2023,” Google said.

ET reported on April 21 that Google was asking Indian app developers to mandatorily use GPBS in territories outside India, failing which their apps would be delisted from the Google Play Store in 14 days.

In its order last week, the CCI noted that despite it asking the US tech giant not to impose any anti-steering provisions on app developers, such provisions continued to be a part of the company’s payment policy. It, therefore, asked Google to clarify the same.