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Dating app Tinder: more than a billion Android users without a match?
Photo: DENIS CHARLET / AFP
The parent company of the dating app Tinder is suing the technology giant Google in the USA for abusing its dominant position in the market.
For the Android operating system, Google "almost completely controls and dominates the market for the distribution of apps," according to a spokesman for the Match Group.
The group has “abused its power in various ways to the detriment of users and app developers”.
Specifically, the point is that Google wants to prohibit app operators from offering alternative payment systems in their programs.
The Match Group wants to legally force Google to allow payment alternatives.
However, this would mean that Google would lose commissions of up to 30 percent.
Are Tinder and OkCupid Ejected from the Play Store?
If the process fails and the Match Group does not comply with Google's new guidelines, the apps could be removed from the Google Play Store, the lawsuit says.
In this case, “more than a billion users of Android devices worldwide could no longer have access to the Match Group apps”.
In addition to Tinder, the Match Group also includes the dating platforms OkCupid, Match.com and Hinge.
Google threatened Match Group with "death" - "a threat they carried out against another developer, Epic Games," according to the indictment.
The game manufacturer Epic Games, which offers "Fortnite", among other things, began a legal dispute against Google and iPhone manufacturer Apple in the summer of 2020 for similar reasons.
Last November, a US federal judge asked Apple to allow an alternative payment system in the App Store.
At the same time, she found that Epic could not prove that Apple had violated competition laws.
While the App Store is the only approved content provider for Apple mobile devices, Android smartphone or tablet users may download apps from online platforms other than the Google Play Store at their own risk.
Google also defends its Play Store fees as industry standard and reasonable for operating a secure, global digital content platform.
Match's lawsuit states that despite competing platforms, users download their apps from the Play Store more than 90 percent of the time.
jlk/AFP