Google requires Netflix and Spotify to pay 30 percent in the Play Store

Google requires all developers to pay 30 percent for transactions in apps that users have installed from the Play Store. Netflix and Spotify, among others, are still working around this.

The policy will not change, Google emphasizes, but enforcement will. From September 30 next year, all apps in the Play Store must use Google’s payment system. Netflix and Spotify ask customers for a credit card when taking out a subscription, The New York Times reports.

The announcement comes at a striking time, because Epic Games last month sued Google for this practice, among other things. Epic said that the mandatory combination of the use of the Google Play Billing payment system and distribution through the Play Store damages competition and keeps the remittance, 30 percent, artificially high.

Google also says in the blog post that Android 12 will make it easy to install and use third-party download stores without compromising security. It is still unclear how this will happen, but automatic updating of apps, among other things, is currently not possible via third-party download stores.