Madras HC junks appeals by bunch of Indian start ups against Google's billing policy

Googles secures positive order from Madras HC

In a setback for Indian startups, a two-judge bench of Madras High Court on January 19 dismissed appeals against Google's app billing policy.

The court has however protected these start-ups for three weeks by asking Google not to de-list their mobile applications till then. These companies may now have to approach the Supreme Court, should they wish to appeal against this order.

The start-ups including Matrimony had challenged the order of a single judge of the high court which held their pleas against the tech giant as 'not maintainable'. According to the High Court, since the startups alleging abuse of the dominant position by Google, the CCI has jurisdiction to adjudicate on the same.

The high court held that CCI is empowered to direct any enterprise guilty of abuse of dominant position to discontinue such practices, hence any order passed by CCI under such circumstances would apply to all the businesses. However, in the case of the present proceedings, such an order will be made applicable only to the company that has challenged Google's policy.

The court had in early 2023 provided an interim injunction to these companies, asking them to pay a lower 4 percent fee to Google for using its in-app payments system. It also directed the tech giant not to delist any of them from the Play Store.

This was after petitioners had approached the state high court challenging Google's notice to either adopt its new app billing policy or face delisting from the app marketplace in recent months. Google had stated in May 2023 that it would start enforcing its Play billing policy in India.

In February 2023, Google said that it would allow app developers to offer an alternate billing system for in-app purchases within India from April 26, 2023. This was announced in a bid to comply with CCI directives that had directed the tech major not to restrict app developers from using a third-party billing system among other things last year.

Google was penalised in October 2022 by India's anti-trust Competition Commission of India (CCI) fined Google Rs 936.44 crore for abusing its dominant position with regard to its Play Store policies, in addition to issuing a cease-and-desist order.

It has directed the tech giant not to restrict app developers from using any third-party billing or payment processing services to purchase apps or for in-app billing on Google Play apart from a series of measures to modify the company's app payment policies within three months.