Good News For Indian App Developers
Union IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said the government had invited Google and the Indian App developers affected by the delisting for a meeting on Monday.
On Saturday, Union IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said he called Google after it removed apps by 10 Indian developers from the Play Store. He mentioned that Google has begun re-listing these apps. Additionally, the government has scheduled a meeting on Monday with Google and the affected Indian app developers.
“We have told [Google] that it must support India’s start-up ecosystem. They have already started re-listing the apps,” Vaishnaw told Hindustan Times. “Google has agreed to cooperate. … I had a conversation with Google last night [Friday] when I first learned of this. I have spoken to them 4-5 times today,” he said.
According to Hindustan Times, Google had begun removing apps by 10 Indian developers for not complying with its controversial payments policy, which requires app developers to pay an 11%-30% service fee to Google for all in-app purchases of digital goods and services.
Info Edge was one of the affected companies, with five of its apps – Naukri.com, Naukri Recruiter, Naukrigulf, 99acres, and Shiksha – disappearing from the Play Store by Saturday morning, as reported by the company to the stock exchanges. By 3:30 pm on Saturday, three apps – Naukri.com, Naukrigulf, and 99acres – had been relisted. Shaadi.com is the only other app to be relisted.
“Many of the Info Edge apps are back on the Play Store. People were up all night for this. Great crisis management,” Sanjeev Bikhchandani, founder and executive vice chairperson of Info Edge, tweeted on X, formerly Twitter.
However, the CEO of Shaadi.com, Anupam Mittal quote tweeted Bikhchandani’s tweet and said, “Please clarify that you are back up as consumption apps only, i.e., without any in-app billing, which will destroy the consumer side of the business in the longer-term. Otherwise, this tweet will be interpreted as everything is back to status quo, which is NOT true.”
In response to a tweet by news agency ANI about how government intervention led to the restoration of the apps, Mittal tweeted, “It’s not true, do your research. Apps are back without billing which is as good as not being there.”
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The second option is to provide an alternative billing system, like RazorPay, alongside GPBS. This option, known as the user choice billing system, allows users to choose between GPBS or the alternative billing system. If users select the alternative billing system, developers will still have to pay Google a service fee of 11% or 26%.
The third option is to “operate on a consumption-only basis without paying a service fee,” meaning not offering in-app billing at all and processing payments only through websites. In this option, developers do not pay Google any service fee, but it creates friction in the user interface, developers say.
One of the Info Edge apps, Jeevansathi, had not been delisted on Friday. “We believe we are in compliance. After February 9 [Supreme Court notice], we moved to a model that complies,” Rohan Mathur, head of Jeevansathi, had told HT on Friday. “We are accepting payments only through the web store [on the website],” he had said, meaning that the company had opted for the “consumption-only” option.
After the delistings started on Friday, initially without affecting any Info Edge apps, Bikhchandani said, “The notice [from Google] does not say they were being delisted. It says if you are non-compliant then you will be delisted. We have been compliant since February 9, the date the Supreme Court order came out. There are no pending invoices from Google with us. All have been paid in a timely manner.”
Other apps, including those from Matrimony.com, AltBalaji, and others, are still unavailable on the Play Store.
