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Four more companies, streaming player Altt, audiobook portal Pratilipi, art and design platform Crafto, and Tamil publisher Ananda Vikatan, have petitioned the Madras High Court for injunctions against Google's payment policy implementation, reported The Economic Times (ET).
Several companies, including Matrimony.com, Shaadi.com, Unacademy, Kuku FM, and TrulyMadly, had previously approached the high court, challenging Google's notice requiring them to use the company's mandated billing route or risk being removed from its Play Store.
'Relief from Google's predatory moves'
Shaadi.com founder Anupam Mittal told ET, "It is clear that companies are hurting due to Google's predatory moves and hence attempting to seek relief from the honourable courts."
"Google already takes out a big part of a digital company's revenue through its ad solutions and now it wishes to take out another big chunk using the app store, rendering most of them unviable," he added.
Mittal claimed that despite the Competition Commission of India's (CCI) directive that Google should not engage in discrimination and should not impose any conditional billing charges, the company is still "finding loopholes and exploiting developers" while they wait for further directives from the anti-trust body.
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What is the case?
In contrast to the CCI proceedings, which are more general in scope, the cases before the Madras High Court ask for very specific relief against Google.
According to the petitioners, Google's payment policies were illegal under local law, and the app developers would suffer irreparable harm if a commission of 11-26 per cent was added to their revenue.
A source in the know further said that Google has also submitted an application stating that the complaint must be dismissed.
