In an effort to comply with the new EU technology rules, Google will now charge a 12 per cent fee (previously 15 per cent) for non-gaming app developers switching to rival payment systems on its Google Play App Store.
However, Google clarified that the fee reduction only applies to European consumers and that the choice to use a different payment system will eventually be extended to gaming apps.
The European Economic Area (EEA) comprises the 27 EU countries, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein.
“When a consumer uses an alternative billing system, the service fee the developer pays will be reduced by 3 per cent. Since 99 per cent of developers currently qualify for a service fee of 15 per cent or less, those developers would pay a service fee of 12 per cent or lower based on transactions through alternative billing for EEA users acquired through the Play platform,” Estelle Werth, Google’s director for EU government affairs and public policy, explained in a blog post.
Google and Apple have been criticized for needlessly charging developers billions of dollars a year. This underscored the companies’ monopoly of power and the new EU technology rules is designed to remove that monopoly.
EU rules, known as the Digital Markets Act (DMA), require tech giants to allow app developers to use rival payment platforms for app sales or risk fines of up to 10 per cent of their global turnover.
The sources for this piece include an article in Reuters.