Google’s Billing Policy Anti-Competitive, India Court Rules (2)

An Indian appeals court Friday agreed with the nation’s antitrust regulator that Google’s app store billing policy was unfair and restrictive for developers, in a setback for the Alphabet Inc. company.

The Competition Commission of India in October 2022 had fined the tech giant 9.4 billion rupees ($110 million) for “abusing” its dominant position on the Android Play Store, and asked the firm not to discriminate against other apps using third-party billing or payment-processing services on the platform.

The National Company Law Appellate Tribunal however lowered the penalty on Google to 2.2 billion rupees, even as it upheld the commission’s ...