You see what? Union ministers have now held a meeting to look into the matter of Google trying to remove apps from the Play Store.

03/05/2024 WFY Bureau

The problematic startups expressed their worries and requested government intervention in separate meetings with Union IT and Communications Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw and Minister of State for IT and Electronics Rajeev Chandrashekhar.

Government ministers met with Google and startups that were removed from the internet giant’s Play Store on Monday, but there doesn’t seem to be a resolution in sight as Indian businesses continue to accuse the US behemoth of exploiting its dominant position.

The fierce disagreement stems from Google charging between 11 and 26 percent for in-app purchases, which was ordered to be discontinued by the anti-competition authority CCI. Previously, Google charged between 15 and 30 percent.

After the Supreme Court denied the corporations behind these apps temporary relief in their fight against Google’s app marketplace price, the search giant proceeded to remove the apps that were not paying the cost.

Chandrasekhar virtually met ADIF (Alliance of Digital India Foundation), the Indian association for app developers.

Under the direction of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the government will keep pursuing fairness for both large and small businesses while developing an environment that will stimulate the expansion of startups.

Startups voiced their worries today about a handful of Google’s practices. I guarantee that @GoI_MeitY will bring up the matter with Google in order to find a viable and enduring resolution,” Chandrasekhar tweeted. Over the previous ten years, the minister claimed that India’s startup environment has seen a profound and significant development.

The minister stated, “We have more than 1 lakh startups and 113 unicorns today, compared to fewer startups in 2014, and we could add 10 lakh startups and 10,000 unicorns in the next ten years.” According to ADIF, its members met with both ministers to discuss their concerns and ask for government support.

“The administration has promised to support both the short-term fix and the long-term structure. According to sources, Vaishnaw was seen earlier in the day by Google executives, who gave their explanation and justification for the action.

The CEO of Stage OTT, which was also removed from the Google Play app store on Friday, Vinay Singhal, claimed that Google is abusing its market dominance and price gouging to take needlessly high fees from little start-ups.

While Google charges 15–30 percent for the same, most payment gateways charge between 0.5 and 2 percent. Without providing any explanation, Google is pricing itself at a 30 percent revenue share by taking advantage of its dominant position.

Less than fifteen of the more than 200 apps that the Play app store removed have been relisted.

“Apps that have complied with Google’s policies have been reinstated.” To keep our visibility, the majority of us had to comply in order to be restored. People didn’t know what was truly going on, so they began to view us as frauds.

The founders, who are In financial distress, said that because they were not gaining any new clients, their revenues had decreased by over 40% in the previous three days. They indicated that our businesses had come to a standstill due to Google’s intervention.