An Indian court ruled against Google, stating that it cannot remove Disney’s streaming service, Disney+ Hotstar, from its app store in the country. Additionally, the court challenged Google’s payment business model, ordering the tech giant to lower its in-app purchase fee to 4%, down from the previous 11-26% range. This ruling comes as Disney filed a lawsuit against Google’s new billing system, claiming that the company threatened to remove the Hotstar app if they didn’t comply with the new payment system.
The court’s decision is a significant challenge to Google’s policy of imposing service fees on in-app payments in India, which has faced opposition from various companies. Previously, Google had to revise its fee structure following an antitrust directive that ruled against its earlier 15-30% fee, allowing third-party payments.
However, the exact details and rationale behind the court’s decision are yet to be disclosed, as the written order has not been made public. Google has not provided any comment in response to the ruling.
Google asserts that its new service fee system supports investments in the Google Play app store and Android mobile operating system, covering developer tools and analytic services while ensuring it remains free for distribution.
In October, India’s competition watchdog fined Google $113 million and mandated the use of third-party billing while stopping the compulsion for developers to use Google’s in-app payment system.
In May, the Indian agency initiated an inquiry into Google following complaints from certain companies, accusing the tech giant of violating last year’s directive with its service fee for in-app payments. The investigation aims to scrutinize Google’s practices in this regard and assess whether the company is adhering to the regulations set forth in the directive.
