Google is creating trouble for small businesses, app developers are worried

ADIF (Alliance of Digital India Foundation), an organization of Indian app companies, said that Google is abusing its dominant position in the market to exploit Indian startups.

Not only this, the company is violating the CCI decision and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act by charging higher fees wrongly.

According to the latest report by news agency PTI, the startup expressed its concerns and sought support from the government. The startup expressed its concerns in separate meetings with Minister of State for IT and Electronics Rajiv Chandrashekhar and Union Minister of Railways, Communications and Electronics and Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnav.

“The government has assured us of support for both immediate solutions and long-term framework,” the startup said. “They supported our concerns, which were primarily about discriminatory pricing, arbitrary revenue sharing and Google abusing its dominant position in the market,”

Union Minister Ashwini Vaishnav had earlier said that the startup ecosystem is the key to the Indian economy and their fate cannot be left to any big tech.

"The government will continue to work towards a level playing field for large and small companies while creating an ecosystem that will drive growth for startups," MoS Rajiv Chandrashekhar said in a post on X.

Vinay Singhal, CEO of Stage OTT App, said that Google is abusing its dominant position in the market and setting prices to extract unnecessary excessive revenue from small start-ups.

"Most payment gateways charge 0.5-2 per cent, while Google charges 15-30 per cent for it. Google is using its dominant position to command 30 per cent revenue share, without giving any justification," he said.

Frustrated founders said their revenue has dropped by more than 40 per cent in the last three days as they are not getting any new customers. He reiterated that Google's action has put a halt to our businesses.

“Kuku FM was the leader with over 40 lakh downloads and around Rs 10 crore revenue per month, which has now reduced to zero. Lal Chand Bisu, co-founder and CEO of KuCoo FM, said Google's unfair move is proving harmful to small businesses.

On Friday, Google said 10 companies in the country, including "many well-established", have avoided paying fees despite benefiting from the platform and the Play Store, and threatened to delist some apps. Have moved forward.

Google claimed that allowing a small group of developers to be treated differently from the majority of developers who pay their fair share creates an uneven playing field, putting all other apps and games at a competitive disadvantage.