Google on March 1 delisted certain matrimonial and dating apps, Bharat Matrimony, Truly Madly, Quack Quack, and two streaming services, Balaji Telefilms’s ALTT (formerly ALTBalaji) and the audio platform Kuku FM, after the Supreme Court declined to provide the companies behind these apps interim relief in their battle against the search giant’s platform fees for in-app payments on Google Play, the company’s mobile app marketplace for the Android operating system.
The development is likely to come as a shock to the firms concerned, which offer a rare segment of digital services where Indian consumers are willing to spend money: entertainment and companionship. Bharat Matrimony says it has a market cap of over ₹2,300 crore. None of the firms that were kicked out of Google Play responded to a request for comment, though Bharat Matrimony founder Murugavel Janakiraman was quoted by the news outlet TechCrunch as saying that this was a “dark day” for the Internet in India, and that the company would explore legal options. Kuku FM cofounder Vinod Kumar Meena said in a statement that Google was behaving like a ‘monopoly,’ and that the search giant was “on [a] hunt to collect rent” from developers. QuackQuack founder Ravi Mittal said in a statement that the company would comply with Google’s rules to get back on the marketplace.
“Unfortunately, we will have to comply with Google’s current policies as there is no alternative or immediate remedy,” Mr. Mittal told The Hindu. “This shows the control Google has over the app economy in a growing country like India.”
