Tech giant Google and the founder of popular matchmaking apps such as Tinder, Match, have made a temporary agreement which will let the company continue to use its third-party payment systems for user purchases, ahead of their court case which is set to take place next year.
Match made an official complaint against Google a few weeks ago, claiming it was attempting to “monopolise the market” through its latest change in policies, which essentially enforces all app developers to use its own in-house payment system and provide the tech giant with a 30 percent share from all their in-app sales.
However, after days of negotiations, the two sides have decided to shake hands, at least until their upcoming trial, allowing Match’s highly appealing apps such as Tinder, OkCupid, Hinge, etc. to stay on the Google Play Store for the time being.
Google has pledged to show “good faith” in its effort to develop “additional billing system features”, while Match has also agreed to try to come up with ways to integrate the tech giant’s updated payment systems into into its apps and provide them as an option for all users.
Rather than giving Google a percentage of all its sales, Match decided to set up a $40 million escrow fund until the time that a final agreement has been achieved between the two sides.
Despite this sign of good will from both sides, that doesn’t mean that they’re fully committed on leaving their differences aside, as they’re still set to meet in court next April. Furthermore, Google are determined to file a counter-suit against Match as they believe the Tinder founder is in breach of their Developer Distribution Agreement.
However, Match isn’t the only app developer to officially complain about the changes made in the Google Play Store, as Bandcamp, a company owned by Epic Games, also took the tech giant to court.
Epic’s argument was that Google were prepared to remove the Bandcamp app from their store for refusing to accept the policy change and continuing to use their own payment system for in-app purchases.
The two sides announced on Friday that they came to a placeholder agreement not too different to the one Google made with Match, which will essentially allow the app to continue to exist on the marketplace. Bandcamp have also set up their own escrow fund from 10 percent of all in-app sales that were meant to go to Google until the case is settled.
Of course this all began with the mother of all conflicts between Apple and Epic. The US tech company essentially removed all of Epic Games’ apps from their store for their refusal to use their own billing system and to give them a share of their in-game sales. The final outcome of the court case saw neither side walk away as the real winner.
However both Google and Apple have come under heavy fire for their recent policy changes by many app creators and developers, but also from people outside the industry, as there are claims that the two companies are attempting to make unfair amounts out of creations that aren’t their own.
