Startups cry foul as Google yanks apps off Play Store for noncompliance

livemint.com:

₹936.44 crore ($113 million) for "abusing the dominant position of its Play Store in the country" by compelling startups to utilize its payment interface, thereby earning incentives ranging from 11% to 30%, based on each app's earnings. While Google has challenged the CCI order, both the ongoing case and the latest instance are under judicial consideration. Final hearings on the matter are pending before both the CCI and the Supreme Court.

“This is an absolute violation of the CCI order. For the first time, our Govt and Judiciary are faced with such blatant violation of regulatory order. This will hurt the entire fledgling digital ecosystem of India.

Google will regret this as the anger will move from just startups to end users who will pay extra. In the short run we need intervention from our Judiciary, and in the long run we need legislation and more power to CCI," India Quotient's founding partner Anand Lunia said. "Also in the long run, the Govt needs to do what it has done with all critical infra- our country is not running on Visa or Mastercard for a reason.

And we know what happened when we summoned Twitter CEO to the parliament. Google should be based in India as a full fledged subsidiary. It has created no wealth on public markets, barely pays income tax or sales tax and has barely created any tech know how," Lunia added.