WASHINGTON: According to a court filing, Google, a subsidiary of Alphabet Inc., has agreed to pay $90 million to end a legal dispute with app developers over the money they made from creating apps for Android mobile devices and convincing users to buy in-app items.
In a lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco, the app developers alleged that Google was closing the app ecosystem and diverting the majority of payments through its Google Play billing system with a default service fee of 30% by using contracts with smartphone manufacturers, technical barriers, and revenue sharing agreements.
Google announced in a blog post that it would contribute $90 million to a fund to assist app developers who earned $2 million or less in annual revenue as part of the proposed settlement.
The majority of US developers who made money through Google Play will be qualified to receive funds from this fund, if they so choose, according to Google’s blog post
Google also announced that it would charge developers a 15 percent commission on the first million dollars of sales they make through the Google Play Store annually. In 2021, it first started doing this.
The proposed settlement must be accepted by the court.
The $90 million funds was open to 48,000 app developers, and the minimum payout is $250, according to Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro LLP, who acted as the plaintiffs’ legal counsel.
