Indian startups are angry at Google … and a call for...

Dozens of Indian tech startups have gathered to look at ways to challenge Google, such as filing complaints with the government and the courts, executives told Reuters.

These Indian startups are frustrated with Google’s domination of home applications.

Google has worked closely with the booming startup sector in India and has intensified its investments there, as the search giant pledged in July to new investments worth $ 10 billion over a period of 7 years, yet it angered many tech companies recently with what it described as unpopular practices. Fair.

The companies discussed forming a new consortium that mainly aims to file protests against the Indian government and courts against Google.

Nearly 99% of the smartphones for half a billion users in India run on Google’s own Android operating system.

Some Indian startups say this allows Google to exercise greater control over the apps and other services it can offer, a claim the company denies.

The uproar began last month, when Google removed the popular payment application “Paytm” from its store, indicating that it violated its policy.

This led to sharp criticism from the founder of the Indian company, Vijay Shekhar Sharma, who returned the app to the Google platform after a few hours, after making some changes.

Sharma Google has been described as the big brother who controls the distribution of apps on Android phones, and he urged about 50 executives to join hands to stop this behavior.

Local competitor

One idea that was raised was to launch a local competitor for Google’s App Store, but Sharma said this would not be effective, given the dominance of Google.

Google previously said that its policies aim to protect Android users, and that it constantly applies and imposes them on developers.

The American company angered some Indian startups this week with its decision to impose a 30% commission on in-app payments via the Android Store.

Many Indian companies criticized this decision, and Reuters said that there are discussions in order to file anti-trust complaints, and to contact the head of Google in India for discussions.

Google defends this policy, saying “97% of apps worldwide adhere to it.”

The company is facing a monopoly issue related to its payments application in India, and a competition investigation into allegations that it misused Android’s dominant position.

These disputes are straining Google’s strong ties with Indian startups, as Google has invested in some of them and helped hundreds of products develop.

“The conflict is counterproductive to what Google was doing, and it is in Google’s interest to solve this problem,” said a senior technology executive who is familiar with Google’s thinking.