(Reuters) – Britain’s competition regulator said on Wednesday it was looking into proposals offered by Alphabet Inc’s Google, which would give app developers the freedom to break away from Google Play’s billing system.
Britain’s investigation in June last year raised concerns that Google’s complete control over in-app payments unfairly restricted app developers, by forcing them to use Google Play’s billing system, and was reducing competition and hurting users.
The Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) said the new proposals allow app developers to offer a different payment system “of their choosing” or give users a choice between an alternative payment system and Google Play’s billing system.
Third party payments providers could market their services to app developers, as per the proposal.
“We need to make sure these commitments will work in practice – so we welcome all feedback, which we will carefully consider before making a final decision,” said Ann Pope, senior director of antitrust at the CMA.
(Reporting by Aby Jose Koilparambil and Yadarisa Shabong in Bengaluru; Editing by Shailesh Kuber)
