War is declared.
Match Group, the parent company of dating sites Tinder and OkCupid, sued Google on Monday, accusing it of abuse of dominance over phones.
The group criticizes Google for wanting to impose on Android users a single and unique method of payment, that passing through the Play Store, which causes a levy of 15% to 30% of Google on the transaction and therefore a loss of earnings for the business.
"Google dominates and almost completely controls the market for distributing applications on Android", the mobile operating system of the overwhelming majority of smartphones in the world, explains Match Group in its press release entitled "End the Google Tax" (" End the Google tax”).
“And he abused his power to the detriment of users and app developers in various ways,” continues the group specializing in dating apps.
Match Group therefore criticizes Google for taking advantage of its dominant position on mobiles to impose rules that it considers unfair, and that it cannot circumvent unless it renounces the majority of its users.
Class lawyers are asking the court to force Google to let Match offer its alternative for payments in its apps.
Google threatens to remove Match apps
Match Group "is conducting a self-serving campaign to avoid paying for the significant value it generates from the mobile platforms on which it has built its business," a Google spokesperson said.
Affected apps may pay “only 15% commission on digital subscriptions, the lowest rate of the major platforms,” he said.
“Regulators are taking a close look at Match Group over potential misleading subscription plans.
And with this complaint, they continue to put money before user protection,” said the Google spokesperson.
“Like any company, our services are paid, and like any responsible platform, we protect users against fraud and abuse in apps,” he added.
If justice does not intervene, and if "Match Group does not comply with Google's policy change, Google has made it clear that it will remove Match's apps from Google Play", worry Match's lawyers.
They accuse Google of "threatening to condemn Match Group to death, a threat" already "executed against another developer, Epic Games".
The previous Fortnite
Google already allows users to download an application without going through its store, but the latter remains the preferred method for most of them.
Video game publisher Epic Games (Fortnite) engaged in a legal tussle against Google and Apple in the summer of 2020 for reasons similar to those cited by Match.
In November, a US federal judge ordered Apple to allow an alternative payment system within the App Store, but also ruled that Epic had failed to prove that Apple had violated antitrust law. .
South Korea fined Google last September nearly $180 million for abusing its dominant position in the mobile app market.
The country's Parliament has also passed a law requiring operators of smartphone operating systems, mainly Google and Apple, to allow application publishers to offer alternative payment systems.