Google has responded to courting app maker Match Group’s antitrust lawsuit in a scathing new court docket submitting which refers to Match’s unique grievance as a “cynical try” to make the most of Google Play’s distribution platform and different instruments whereas making an attempt to sidestep Google’s charges.
The 2 tech giants have been battling it out in court docket after Match sued Google this Might over its alleged monopoly energy in Android app funds.
Match — which operates courting apps together with Tinder, Match, OkCupid, Loads of Fish, Hinge, and others — is claiming Google has an excessive amount of management over the Google Play app market and makes use of anticompetitive techniques to take care of its maintain on that ecosystem. The app maker is one among many bigger publishers, alongside Epic Video games and Spotify, which have been searching for aid from Google’s service charges. Epic Video games can be suing each Apple and Google. The businesses largely wish to supply their very own in-app cost programs as an alternative of being compelled to make use of Google’s personal funds infrastructure and wish to keep away from the commissions that include having their apps distributed by way of the Google Play retailer and App Retailer.
Earlier this 12 months, Google and Match got here to a short lived compromise about how they might proceed whereas the lawsuit was underway. Match mentioned Google assured it could not ban or block its courting apps from Google Play for providing various funds and Match would place as much as $40 million apart in an escrow account in lieu of paying Google’s charges till the decide decided the end result of the case.
Now, Google has filed its counterclaim on this ongoing lawsuit, the place it argues that Match is deceptive the court docket in saying Google merely gives cost processing charges to the apps distributed on its platform.
Writes Google:
Whereas Match Group claims that Google Play solely gives cost processing, that merely isn’t true. Google Play gives instruments and a worldwide distribution platform that has allowed Match Group to thrive and construct a profitable community of customers that’s vital for its courting apps. Match Group now seeks to entry Google Play’s international distribution platform and customers and leverage Google’s substantial investments within the platform, all without cost.
Google goes on to tout the discoverability made potential by way of the Play Retailer and the instruments it gives to builders, together with the free software program supplied that enables builders to construct apps, its testing and monitoring instruments, and its digital funds infrastructure. Plus, Google argues that its 15% charge for Match Group subscriptions is “half the quantity” different main platforms cost — a reference seemingly to Apple, however deceptive since each platforms cut back commissions from 30% to fifteen% in an app’s second 12 months.
The response moreover factors out that there are different methods to load apps onto Android telephones, in contrast to on iOS which restricts sideloading.
Google additionally offers out just a few key blows — for instance, by noting {that a} senior VP at Match Group had as soon as admitted that Match’s actual downside with Google Play’s billing system is “the benefit with which customers can cancel their subscriptions” utilizing Google’s instruments.
This explicit declare remembers an earlier lawsuit towards Match filed by authorities regulators. In 2019, the U.S. Federal Commerce Fee (FTC) sued Match for fraud. Amongst different issues, it mentioned the corporate made it troublesome for customers to cancel their subscriptions and would use methods that led customers to suppose they’d stopped the fees after they truly had not. (A lot of the claims in that go well with had been dismissed earlier this 12 months, nonetheless, primarily based on the case’s authorized standing versus a judgment associated to the complaints themselves.)
Google additionally references the FTC’s lawsuit in its new submitting, including that Match executives had acknowledged the cancellation course of is “laborious to seek out, tedious, and complicated.” A Match Group exec’s quote, sadly, is redacted within the submitting.
Google is asking for a trial by jury and financial aid associated to Match Group’s breach of contract. It additionally seeks a ruling that may completely ban Match Group from the Google Play retailer.
The lawsuit is continuing within the U.S. District Courtroom, Northern District of California. Information of the submitting was first reported by Bloomberg.
In a press release, Google mentioned, “Match Group entered right into a contract with us and this go well with seeks to carry Match to its finish of the settlement – we’re wanting ahead to creating our case. In the meantime, we are going to proceed to defend ourselves towards Match’s baseless claims.”
Match has additionally been requested for remark.
