The company is streamlining development on the platform to help free up resources for artificial intelligence.
Google hopes you will park and play, but most gaming in cars will only make sense if self-driving vehicles are a thing.
Google said today that it will start offering user choice billing in the U.K., giving Google Play developers the ability to use other billing options instead of Google’s own system. The change kicks in on March 29, initially only to non-game developers.
If developers opt for it, they cannot replace Google Play billing altogether. Instead, the third-party route will be offered as an option.
Developer who opt to use an alternative billing option get a 4% discount from the fees they pay to Google (to account for the fees that third parties may also charge). Google typically gets a cut of up to 30% on in-app transactions and paid downloads.
In a blog post announcing the change, Google claimed that more than 90% of developers on its platform are “satisfied” or “very satisfied” with Google Play’s native billing. However, it added, “We recognise that some developers may want more choice in how they process payments. This launch enables developers to offer an additional billing system alongside Google Play’s billing system and users can choose which option to use at checkout.”
The backstory is a little less rosy than Google just being a Nice Guy.
Google’s move is actually a long-awaited response to a Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) investigation dating back to 2022.
At that time, the competition watchdog published a report based on a year-long study of the mobile ecosystem and noted that both Google and Apple’s power in the market could be subject to regulatory scrutiny. The companies’ app stores — where they were the sole in-app billing providers for their respective platforms — was a particular point of focus when investigating Google and Apple’s anticompetitive duopoly status.
That was only the start. In 2023, Google proposed that it could offer user choice billing to developers to settle the antitrust probe. In response, the CMA opened up a consultation and invited developers to provide feedback on Google’s proposal.
The CMA ultimately closed the probe against Google and Apple last year, noting that it planned to use regulatory reforms, such as the digital market competition bill, to regulate these companies in the mobile market.
In the meantime, Google has been permitting billing from third parties elsewhere in response to regulatory pressure to open its app store to more competition.
Countries where Google already offers user choice billing include the U.S., as well as India, Australia, Indonesia, Japan, and the European Economic Area (EEA), which all follow the same commissions and charges as in the U.K.
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Meta, X, and Snap are celebrating a new Utah law that will require Apple and Google to take responsibility for verifying users’ ages on their app stores and obtain parental consent for minors.
The tech giants have been battling to determine which party should be responsible for age verification on the app stores. Companies like Meta believe the app stores themselves should verify users’ ages because these entities host and distribute the apps. The app stores, however, argue that companies making the apps should bear the responsibility as they’re the ones offering the product to end users.
Utah isn’t the only state considering some such legislation around age verification; it is the first to enact a law of this kind. The App Store Accountability Act, as the new law is called, was passed by Utah’s legislature earlier this month, then headed to Gov. Spencer Cox’s desk for a signature to make it official.
Ahead of the law’s passing, Apple announced a new set of child safety initiatives for its App Store, which include an age-checking system for apps. Its implementation would allow app developers to use a new Declared Age Range API to access age range information provided by the parent. This information doesn’t provide the app developer with the minor’s exact age or birthdate, but allows them to customize their app experiences appropriately based on the age range provided.
Apple’s system requires the app developers to do the work of requesting the age range before an app is used, rather than the App Store verifying the age at the time of download.
Not surprisingly, social media companies are thrilled the new Utah law would require app stores to verify users’ ages before apps can be downloaded onto their devices.
In a joint statement, Meta, X, and Snap praised Utah’s move, saying:
We applaud Governor Cox and the State of Utah for being the first in the nation to empower parents and users with greater control over teen app downloads, and urge other states to consider this groundbreaking approach. Parents want a one-stop-shop to oversee and approve the many apps their teens want to download, and Utah has led the way in centralizing it within a device’s app store. This approach spares users from repeatedly submitting personal information to countless individual apps and online services. We are committed to safeguarding parents and teens, and look forward to seeing more states adopt this model.
In total, 16 U.S. states, including California and Texas, have introduced their own versions of app store legislation focused on age verification and youth safety.
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