Google's move will cause ‘irreparable harm to the market’: Indian startups' plea to CCI on app delisting row

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Indian startups have now approached the country's top antitrust regulator to force Google to reinstate the apps it removed on Friday for policy reasons..

Google had removed around 200 Indian apps, including Naukri, 99acres, Bharat Matrimony and Kuku FM, and the tech giant later reinstated only around 15 of them..

According to a Reuters report, citing the letter written by the Alliance of Digital India Foundation (ADIF), Indian startups claim that Google's "brazen" move to delist these apps from the Google Play store was anti-competitive and that the Competition Commission of India (CCI) should ask the Mountain View, California-based company to reverse its decision..

Indian startups and Google have been at loggerheads over the company's decision to impose a fee of 11-26 percent on in-app payments..

The Indian startups claim that Google is abusing its dominant position in the market to charge a fee of 11-26 per cent for in-app payments, when most payment gateways charge only around 0.5-2 per cent..

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