'Play' fair: India fines Google Rs 936.44 crore for Play Store policies

Google has been fined Rs 936.44 crore by the Competition Commission of India for abusing its dominant position with respect to Play Store policies. Besides slapping a penalty, the company was directed on Tuesday to cease and desist from unfair business practices.

In a release, the Competition Commission of India said Google was also directed to modify its conduct within a defined timeline.

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To note, this is CCI's second significant ruling against Google within a week. On October 20, the CCI slapped a penalty of Rs 1,337.76 crore on the technology giant for abusing its dominant position in multiple markets over Android mobile devices and ordered the internet major to desist from various unfair business practices. 

The CCI observed that app stores had become a necessary medium for app developers to distribute their apps to the end users and the availability of an app store(s) is directly dependent upon the operating system installed on the smart device. 

In a statement, the CCI said: 'An appreciation of the market dynamics in licensable mobile operating system in India makes it evident that Google's Android operating system successfully reaped the indirect network effects.' 

'Google’s Play Store constitutes the main distribution channel for app developers in the Android mobile ecosystem, which allows its owners to capitalize on the apps brought to market,' it added. 

The CCI, in its assessment, found Google to be dominant in the markets for licensable operating systems for smart mobile devices and market for app stores for Android smart mobile operating systems in India.

For app developers to monetize their creations or innovations, it is important for them to sell in-app digital goods. However, developers must configure their apps for in-app digital goods to be distributed to purchasing users in such a manner that all digital goods purchases or transactions are processed through Google’s payment system, which processes the transactions, the CCI observed.

Google’s Play Store policies require the app developers to exclusively and mandatorily use Google Play's Billing System (GPBS) for certain in-app purchases -- purchases made by app users after they have downloaded the app from the Play Store The same is also mandated for receiving payments for apps (and other digital products like audio, video, games) distributed/sold through the Google Play Store. 

Further, application developers cannot provide users with a direct link to a webpage within an app containing an alternative payment method or use language that encourages a user to purchase the digital item outside the app.

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• Competition Commission of India
• Google
• Google India
• Google penalised
• Play Store
• cease and desist
• tecjnology
• unfair business practices