Local Startups Protesting Google’s Billing Policy

According to multiple people aware of recent discussions with the tech engine giant, Indian Startups Companies and large Internet Firms are pushing Google to provide alternatives to its billing system to keep the market ‘open’. These talks conducted on Wednesday included those at the app developer conference held by Google for India.

The progress follows local startups protesting to Google’s billing policy for in-app purchase in India, which could result in a 30 per cent of the commission going to the tech giant. Although app developers participated in the meeting, the US team of Google has reached out to different startups’ founding or leadership teams. These included PhonePe and Razorpay, which have raised concerns with Google.

In the coming weeks, the US-based tech giant is arranging several developer conferences with the next one scheduled in November. “There are two conversational lines. On a policy level, it’s with founders directly. However, their developers are also being reached to resolve concerns and doubts about the execution of the policy, said one of the people listed earlier.

Essentially, Indian firms are pushing Google to hold all payment options available rather than restricting them to their in-app purchase platform only. “Google has been open to concerns. Many believe it’s easier to offer several billing options better than to cut the 30 per cent charge.” One of the entrepreneurs, to whom Google had reached out, said that what if they are extended to others also?

Leader’s of PhonePe is understood to have raised concerns in its talk with Google’s US team over the “arbitrarily” exclusion of applications from the app store on such matters without appropriate consultations, affecting platforms with millions of monthly active users.
PhonePe spokesperson said,  “Last week, we talked to Google and expressed our concerns. However, we were not invited to any webinar,”. Paytm’s spokesperson also clarified that there was no request to attend a Google webinar.

All this comes even though an antitrust case against Google was brought earlier this week by the US Department of Justice.

India’s Google spokesperson said, “We are launching policy workshops with developers across India, as expressed earlier, to allow greater access to our teams and also to get a better understanding of the particular needs of developers in India. These efforts are in line with our priorities of working and developing together with the ecosystem, he further added.