Supreme Court To Hear Plea Against Google's User Choice Billing Policy

The Supreme Court on Friday agreed to hear pleas filed by multiple Indian companies against Google's user choice billing policy.

However, the court refused to pass any interim order to protect the companies from being delisted from Play Store.

Earlier this year, a division bench of the Madras High Court dismissed appeals filed by Indian companies challenging Google LLC's new billing policy.

This dismissal affirmed an order of a single judge of the high court, which had dismissed the petitions in August last year.

The matter falls under the jurisdiction of the Competition Commission of India, which offers a more comprehensive remedy while dealing with issues pertaining to market correction, the high court had said.

The court had also directed Google not to delist the apps of these companies until the matter was decided upon.

At the heart of the issue lies Google's user choice billing system, which imposes a service fee ranging from 11% to 26% on the app developers for download of paid apps and in-app purchases from the Play Store.

This system allows app developers to use a third party billing system apart from Google's Billing Payment System.

Under the GBPS, the app developers had to pay a service fee ranging from 15% to 30%.

Notably, in 2022, the CCI had imposed a penalty of Rs 936.44 crore on the tech giant for mandating the use of GBPS for paid apps and in-app purchases.

The commission had also directed Google to allow app developers to use third-party billing services for app purchases and in-app shopping.