Google is being investigated for accusations of having offered the Netflix streaming platform a special discount on commissions of 30 % for internal payments from the Google Play Store, to prevent it from opting for an external payment system.
This was denounced by a group of United States prosecutors, who initiated an investigation against the search engine for monopoly practices in its online store, of which they have presented the first documents.
According to the investigation documents, Google’s offer took place in response to attempts by some of the main applications, such as Netflix, Spotify and Tinder, to prepare a payment system outside the platform.
To avoid the discontent of the streaming platform for the Play Store commissions for internal payments, which is 30 %, Google would have offered the app a special discount in the share of benefits for payments, something that according to the accusation would be a monopoly practice.
Likewise, the court documents point to the existence of internal Google figures that indicate that the equilibrium level for the distribution of income would be around 6 % of commissions.
The prosecution’s arguments also claim that, while Samsung’s software revenue was $ 100 million in 2019, Google Play earned $ 4 billion from the South Korean brand’s terminals alone this year.
K. Tovar
Source: Business Insider
