Google on Tuesday said apps that choose to sell digital content through its Play Store have to use Google Play billing system and pay a percentage of the in-app purchase as fee. The tech giant – which was recently embroiled in a controversy after blocking Paytm app for a few hours – said while the policy for using Google Play’s billing system for in-app purchases of digital goods has been in existence, there was a need to clarify it.
“Today, we are clarifying a Play billing policy, which has been long standing and existing…Recent incidents and otherwise have shown us that clarifying policies and applying them equitably and equally is very important for the ecosystem …every developer that chooses to sell digital content through Google Play will use Play billing,” Google Director Business Development, Games and Applications Purnima Kochikar told reporters in a virtual briefing.
This would mean that developers will have to start using Google’s billing system that charges a 30 per cent cut of the payment made within the app, starting September 2021.
Any app that chooses to offer in-app purchase of digital goods like unlocking additional features or buying tokens to power up a game character or paying for songs, will be required to use Google Play’s billing system.
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