Google said today that it will start to invoice user choice in the United Kingdom, giving Google Play developers the possibility of using other billing options instead of the own Google system. The change comes on March 29, initially only to non-game developers.
If the developers opt for this, they cannot completely replace Google Play Billing. Instead, the third -party route will be offered as an option.
The developer who chooses to use an alternative invoicing option obtains a 4% discount of the costs they pay in Google (to take into account the costs that third parties can also charge). Google generally obtains a 30% reduction on integrated transactions and paid downloads.
In a blog Announcing the change, Google said that more than 90% of developers on its platform are “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with the native billing of Google Play. However, he added: “We recognize that some developers may want more choices in the way they deal with payments. This launch allows developers to offer an additional billing system alongside the Google Play billing system and users can choose the option to be used at the checkout.”
The background is a little less pink than Google just being a nice guy.
Google’s decision is actually a long -awaited response to an investigation by competition and market authority (CMA) dating from 2022.
At that time, the competition dog published a report Based on a one -year study of the mobile ecosystem and noted that the power of Google and Apple on the market could be subject to a regulatory examination. Companies’ application stores – where they were the only billing suppliers in the application for their respective platforms – was a special development point when studying Apple’s anti -competitive duopoly.
It was only the beginning. In 2023, Google proposed that it could offer a billing of users to developers to adjust the antitrust probe. In response, the CMA opened a consultation And invited the developers to provide comments on Google’s proposal.
The ACM finally closed the survey against Google and Apple last year, noting that it planned to use regulatory reforms, such as the competition bill for the digital market, to regulate these companies on the mobile market.
In the meantime, Google authorizes the invoicing of third parties elsewhere in response to regulatory pressure to open its app store to more competition.
The countries where Google already offers the invoicing of user choice includes the United States, as well as India, Australia, Indonesia, Japan and European Economic Area (EEE), which all follow the same commissions and charges as in the United Kingdom
