Google Restored Delisted Apps After Centre's Intervention, says Vaishnaw

New Delhi: Telecom and information and technology minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Tuesday announced officially that Google has agreed to reinstate all the delisted apps of Indian companies on its PlayStore after the government intervened to resolve a dispute over service fee payments.

Google beginning Saturday restored some apps that agreed to comply with its guideline to pay a fee of up to 25 per cent on in-app payments or do financial transactions outside of the app.

Last Friday, Google removed a dozen apps from its Play Store, including the popular ones such as matrimony.com and naukri.com for non-compliance with its in-app payment guidelines.

"As the government took strong exception to the removal, calling it unacceptable, Google beginning Saturday restored some apps that agreed to comply with its guideline to pay a fee of 11-25 per cent on in-app payments or do financial transactions outside of the app," Vaishnaw said.

However, the minister further said that the US tech giant has been supporting India's technology development journey. “We believe Google and the startup community will be able to come to a long-term solution in coming months,” he said, indicating the two sides will now sit down and thrash out the issue of levy of service charge.

Vaishnaw and Minister of State for Information and Technology Rajeev Chandrasekhar held multiple rounds of discussions with Google and the app owners on Monday in a bid to find a solution to the crisis that was being labelled as a dark day for the Internet by some.