Google Announces Temporary Nature Of Court Order On Disney+ Hotstar App Fee In India

Google has announced that a recent court order regarding the fee charged for in-app purchases on the Disney+ Hotstar app in India is temporary.

The most recent and prominent legal challenge to Google's strategy of levying a "service fee" of 11-26% on in-app purchases comes from Disney in India. After an antitrust ruling invalidated Google's prior 15-30% fee and compelled Google to accept third-party payments, the service fee was instituted.

A major blow to Google's payments business model came on Tuesday when an Indian court ruled that the company should only be charged 4% for in-app purchases from Disney+ Hotstar and could not ban Disney's app from its India app store.

"The order is interim in nature, and the temporary 4% figure is simply a fee that the developer will pay to Google each month while these legal proceedings play out," Google said in a statement.

Google must abide with the court's orders until they are reversed or changed.

Disney, the operator of the popular Disney+ Hotstar streaming service in India, has taken legal action against Google's new charging scheme in the state of Tamil Nadu. Disney's legal representatives argued that failure to comply with the new payment system could result in Google removing the Hotstar app from its platform.