Google has responded to relationship 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 benefit from Google Play’s distribution platform and different instruments whereas trying to sidestep Google’s charges.
The 2 tech giants have been battling it out in court docket after Match sued Google this Could over its alleged monopoly energy in Android app funds.
Match — which operates relationship 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 ways to take care of its maintain on that ecosystem. The app maker is considered one of many bigger publishers, alongside Epic Video games and Spotify, which have been searching for reduction from Google’s service charges. Epic Video games can be suing each Apple and Google. The businesses largely wish to provide their very own in-app fee 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 means of the Google Play retailer and App Retailer.
Earlier this yr, Google and Match got here to a brief compromise about how they might proceed whereas the lawsuit was underway. Match mentioned Google assured it could not ban or block its relationship apps from Google Play for providing different funds and Match would place as much as $40 million apart in an escrow account in lieu of paying Google’s charges till the choose 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 offers fee processing charges to the apps distributed on its platform.
Writes Google:
Whereas Match Group claims that Google Play solely offers fee processing, that merely isn’t true. Google Play offers instruments and a world distribution platform that has allowed Match Group to thrive and construct a profitable community of customers that’s important for its relationship apps. Match Group now seeks to entry Google Play’s world distribution platform and customers and leverage Google’s substantial investments within the platform, all totally free.
Google goes on to tout the discoverability made attainable by means of the Play Retailer and the instruments it offers to builders, together with the free software program offered that permits builders to construct apps, its testing and monitoring instruments, and its digital funds infrastructure. Plus, Google argues that its 15% price 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 yr.
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 drawback with Google Play’s billing system is “the benefit with which customers can cancel their subscriptions” utilizing Google’s instruments.
This specific declare recollects an earlier lawsuit in opposition to 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 tips that led customers to suppose they’d stopped the costs once they really had not. (Many of the claims in that swimsuit had been dismissed earlier this yr, nevertheless, based mostly 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 “onerous to search 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 reduction associated to Match Group’s breach of contract. It additionally seeks a ruling that will completely ban Match Group from the Google Play retailer.
The lawsuit is continuing within the U.S. District Court docket, Northern District of California. Information of the submitting was first reported by Bloomberg.
In an announcement, Google mentioned, “Match Group entered right into a contract with us and this swimsuit 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 in opposition to Match’s baseless claims.”
Match has additionally been requested for remark.