Indian app developers hail CCI penalty on Google as ‘collective victory’

Indian mobile application developers hailed the Competition Commission of India’s decision to impose a fine of Rs 937 crore on Google for abusing its dominant position with regard to its Play Store policies as a collective win for Indian start-ups.

The CCI asked Google to “not restrict app developers from using third-party billing/payment processing services”.

Sijo Kuruvilla, former executive director of the think tank Alliance of Digital India Foundation, tweeted: “Absolute collective win by the Indian start-up ecosystem. Our Diwali gift for the world. The verdict is an inflection point. Will result in a domino effect in other markets and geographies.”

In March, Google had launched a pilot programme that allowed a few developers to offer an additional billing system alongside that of Google Play.