Indian Court Allows Disney's Streaming Service In App Store With In-App Purchase Charges

An Indian court has ruled in favor of Disney, stating that Google cannot remove the Disney+ Hotstar app from its Play Store. The dispute revolves around the contentious issue of in-app charges and revenue sharing between the two companies.

Disney's lawsuit is the most recent and well-publicised attempt to overturn Google's decision to charge an 11-26% "service fee" on in-app purchases made in India.

After an antitrust ruling invalidated Google's prior 15-30% charge and ordered Google to permit third-party payments, it implemented that. Businesses claim that Google's new service fee structure is just a disguised version of its prior approach.

Disney, which manages the well-known Disney+ Hotstar streaming service in India, filed a legal challenge against Google's new payment scheme in the Tamil Nadu state of that country. Its solicitors said that if Hotstar didn't adhere to the new payment mechanism, Google would remove the app.

The decision to retain the streaming app in Google's app store was affirmed by the court following a hearing on Tuesday, where it was determined that Disney must now pay Google a 4% service fee.

Since the written order was not made public, more information about it or the reasoning behind the judgement are unknown.

The new service fee scheme, it claims, supports investments in the Android mobile operating system and the Google Play app store, guaranteeing that they are distributed for free, and also includes developer tools and analytic services.

The antitrust commission in India fined Google $113 million in October and ordered the company to stop requiring developers to adopt its in-app payment system.

The regulator opened an investigation into Google in May after several businesses said the service fee it charges for in-app purchases violates a previous directive.