Google announced further changes to its mobile app store on Tuesday in a bid to avoid fines from the European Commission under the EU’s Big Tech rulebook, the Digital Markets Act (DMA).
In a post on its Policy Centre this week, Google set out amendments to its “external offers program” for developers using its Play Store to distribute apps in the European Economic Area, which it said should allow them to more easily point users to offers outside the company’s own app Store.
The tech giant has also introduced a tiered structure for an “ongoing service” fee that it levies on developers, similar to the changes proposed by Apple in June.
Under the bloc’s DMA, tech giants (including Apple and Google) can face fines up to 10% of their annual worldwide turnover for confirmed breaches. This year, the Commission has fined Apple and Meta after confirming violations – but, so far, Google has dodged a DMA penalty despite the Commission’s preliminary breach finding on its Play Store in March.
Tiered fees
Google’s latest changes, which included revisions to the fees it charges app developers, shows the company wants to work around the EU’s regulation.
Historically, developers have fought to be able to point their own users to offers outside the mobile app stores to avoid the platforms taking a chunk of their in-app sales in commission charges. But in response to the DMA both Google and Apple introduced new fees for developers.
Google has now further revised its expanded fee structure. One change pertains to an “initial acquisition fee” for developers, which it’s reduced from 10% to 3%. This will now only apply for six months after the user installs an app.
Separately, Play Store developers must pay the required “Tier 1” service fee, which Google suggests is “essential” for them to have “a safe and reliable app”, such as by accessing its app review system.
A “Tier 2” fee, meanwhile, is optional, but unlocks “additional capabilities,” including app distribution, discovery and management, and additional service elements, like custom promotion campaigns.
Google is applying a fixed fee rate per app install across Tier 1 and Tier 2 – although the fee varies depending on the app user’s country and whether it’s a game or other type of app. Rates run from €0.10 at the low end (e.g. for a game installed by a Play user in Romania) up to €1.90 (for a game installed by a user in Germany).
Junk fees?
Tim Sweeney, the CEO of Epic Games, a longtime critic of both Apple and Google’s app store “taxes” on developers, condemned Google’s move as “plainly unlawful” and slammed the changes as “junk fees and discriminatory deprioritisation of search results.”
Gene Burrus from the Coalition for App Fairness, representing app developers such as Spotify and Match Group, also attacked Google’s move – saying it “perpetuates fees and restrictions that violate the DMA.”
While Google’s post about the changes claims they increase developers’ “flexibility” (while “balancing trust and safety needs across the ecosystem”, as it puts it), the tech giant is simultaneously warning the revisions could increase security risks for users of its Android platform.
“We still have concerns that these changes could expose Android users to harmful content and make the app experience worse,” Google’s senior competition counsel, Clare Kelly, said in a statement emailed to Euractiv.
The company is recommending that users only install apps from trusted stores, such as its Play Store, to reduce malware risks.
Kelly added that the changes are being made “following DMA discussions with the Commission.”
(nl, mm)
