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Minister: Google's Removal of Apps from Play Store in India 'Cannot Be Permitted'

FILE PHOTO: India's Minister for Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw addresses the audience during the 'SemiconIndia 2023', India’s annual semiconductor conference, in Gandhinagar, India, July 28, 2023. REUTERS/Amit Dave/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: India's Minister for Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw addresses the audience during the 'SemiconIndia 2023', India’s annual semiconductor conference, in Gandhinagar, India, July 28, 2023. REUTERS/Amit Dave/File Photo
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Minister: Google's Removal of Apps from Play Store in India 'Cannot Be Permitted'

FILE PHOTO: India's Minister for Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw addresses the audience during the 'SemiconIndia 2023', India’s annual semiconductor conference, in Gandhinagar, India, July 28, 2023. REUTERS/Amit Dave/File Photo
FILE PHOTO: India's Minister for Information Technology Ashwini Vaishnaw addresses the audience during the 'SemiconIndia 2023', India’s annual semiconductor conference, in Gandhinagar, India, July 28, 2023. REUTERS/Amit Dave/File Photo

Google's decision to remove some apps in India from its app store "cannot be permitted", Information Technology Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said on Saturday, amid an ongoing dispute over service fee payments to the US firm.
Google on Friday removed from its Play Store many Indian apps, including Matrimony.com's popular Bharat Matrimony and job search app Naukri, saying the companies were not abiding by its in-app payment guidelines.
Vaishnaw said he has held talks with Google and will meet the startups, which needed protection in India.
"This cannot be permitted. This kind of de-listing cannot be permitted," he said in a statement.
Google declined to comment, according to Reuters.
The removal has sparked criticism from many startups who have for years protested and legally challenged many of the US giant's practices, including its in-app fee. Google says the fees help develop and promote the Android and Play Store ecosystem.
The dispute centers on efforts by some Indian startups to stop Google from imposing a fee of 11%-26% on in-app payments, after the country's antitrust authorities ordered it to not mandatorily enforce an earlier system of charging 15%-30%.
But Google effectively received the go-ahead to charge the fee or remove apps after two court decisions in January and February, one by the Supreme Court.
Google said on Friday that some Indian companies had chosen not to pay for the "immense value they receive on Google Play".
Among the worst hit by the removals is Matrimony.com which has seen more than 150 of its apps dropped from the Play Store.
"All our apps have been removed and we are out of Play Store and (that) means out of business," founder Murugavel Janakiraman told Reuters on Saturday. "If this continuous for a long term then we will have significant drop in revenue."
Info Edge, another affected company, had seen its job search app Naukri and another real estate search app, removed. Many of the company's app had been restored, its founder said on Saturday on X, without elaborating.
Google briefly removed popular Indian payments app Paytm from its Play Store in 2020 citing some policy violations. The move led to the company's founder and the wider startup industry joining together to challenge Google by launching their own app stores and filing legal cases.

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US Defends Law Forcing Sale of TikTok App

This photograph taken in Mulhouse, eastern France on October 19, 2023, shows the logo of the social media video sharing app TikTok reflected in mirrors. (AFP)
This photograph taken in Mulhouse, eastern France on October 19, 2023, shows the logo of the social media video sharing app TikTok reflected in mirrors. (AFP)
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US Defends Law Forcing Sale of TikTok App

This photograph taken in Mulhouse, eastern France on October 19, 2023, shows the logo of the social media video sharing app TikTok reflected in mirrors. (AFP)
This photograph taken in Mulhouse, eastern France on October 19, 2023, shows the logo of the social media video sharing app TikTok reflected in mirrors. (AFP)

The Justice Department late Friday filed its response to TikTok's civil suit aimed at derailing a law that would force the app to be sold or face a US ban.

TikTok's suit in a Washington federal court argues that the law violates First Amendment rights of free speech.

The US response counters that the law addresses national security concerns, not speech, and that TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance is not able to claim First Amendment rights here.

The filing details concerns that ByteDance could, and would, comply with Chinese government demands for data about US users or yield to pressure to censor or promote content on the platform, senior justice department officials said in a briefing.

"The goal of this law is to ensure that young people, old people and everyone in between is able to use the platform in a safe manner," a senior justice department official said.

"And to use it in a way confident that their data is not ultimately going back to the Chinese government and what they're watching is not being directed by or censored by the Chinese government."

The response argues that the law's focus on foreign ownership of TikTok takes it out of the realm of the First Amendment.

US intelligence agencies are concerned that China can "weaponize" mobile apps, justice department officials said.

"It's clear that the Chinese government has for years been pursuing large, structured datasets of Americans through all sorts of manner, including malicious cyber activity; including efforts to buy that data from data brokers and others, and including efforts to build sophisticated AI models that can utilize that data," a senior justice department official said.

TikTok has said the demanded divestiture is "simply not possible" -- and not on the timeline required.

The bill signed by President Joe Biden early this year set a mid-January 2025 deadline for TikTok to find a non-Chinese buyer or face a US ban.

The White House can extend the deadline by 90 days.

"For the first time in history, Congress has enacted a law that subjects a single, named speech platform to a permanent, nationwide ban, and bars every American from participating in a unique online community with more than one billion people worldwide," said the suit by TikTok and ByteDance.

- TikTok shutdown? -

ByteDance has said it has no plans to sell TikTok, leaving the lawsuit, which will likely go to the US Supreme Court, as its only option to avoid a ban.

"There is no question: the Act will force a shutdown of TikTok by January 19, 2025," the lawsuit said, "silencing (those) who use the platform to communicate in ways that cannot be replicated elsewhere."

TikTok first found itself in the crosshairs of former president Donald Trump's administration, which tried unsuccessfully to ban it.

That effort got bogged down in the courts when a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump's attempt, saying the reasons for banning the app were likely overstated and that free speech rights were in jeopardy.

The new effort signed by Biden was designed to overcome the same legal headaches, and some experts believe the US Supreme Court could be open to allowing national security considerations to outweigh free speech protection.

"We view the statute as a game changer from the arguments that were in play back in 2020," a senior justice department official said.

There are serious doubts that any buyer could emerge to purchase TikTok even if ByteDance would agree to the request.

Big tech's usual suspects, such as Facebook parent Meta or YouTube's Google, will likely be barred from snapping up TikTok over antitrust concerns, and others could not afford one of the world's most successful apps used by about 170 million people in the United States alone.