Google delays in-app billing crackdown after wave of US antitrust lawsuits

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2021-07-19 17:30:06

Earlier this month, Google was sued by dozens of state attorneys general over its Play Store policies. Just over a week later, the company is essentially delaying the enforcement of one of its most significant upcoming changes: a decree that all Play Store apps must use Google's in-app billing or face a ban. Developers can now request a six-month extension to the deadline.

Late Friday, Google posted an update, saying, "After carefully considering feedback from both large and small developers, we are giving developers an option to request a 6-month extension, which will give them until March 31, 2022 to comply with our Payments policy." Google doesn't mention the antitrust lawsuits in its blog post, instead pitching this delay as a solution to an engineering problem. Even with a one-year notice of the deadline, Google claims that the pandemic is making it difficult for developers to switch to Google's in-app billing system on time:

Many of our partners have been making steady progress toward the September 30 deadline. However, we continue to hear from developers all over the world that the past year has been particularly difficult, especially for those with engineering teams in regions that continue to be hard hit by the effects of the global pandemic, making it tougher than usual for them to make the technical updates related to this policy.