Anupam Mittal criticizes Google for delisting Indian app from Play Store

Popular Indian apps were delisted from the Google Play Store on Friday. This comes after Google’s warning regarding billing policies led to a dispute over service fee payments. One of the apps delisted was Shaadi.com, an online matrimony platform for bachelors looking for their match. It is quite popular in the Indian market and boasts over 5 crore users.

Anupam Mittal the founder of Shaadi.com is a well-known entrepreneur who also appears as one of the ‘Sharks’ in Shark Tank India. He is also an early investor in multiple popular companies currently standing, including OLA.

Mittal wrote about the situation, saying, “Today is a dark day for India Internet. Google has delisted major apps from its app store, even though legal hearings are underway in CCI & Supreme Court.”

“Their false narratives & audacity show they have little regard for 🇮🇳 Make no mistake – this is the new Digital East India Co. and this Lagaan (Tax) must be stopped! Pls RT and Save Our Startups,” he added.

Google defended their action in a blog, claiming ten companies in the country, including many well-established names. These companies avoided paying fees despite benefiting from the platform.

“After giving these developers more than three years to prepare, we are taking necessary steps to ensure our policies are applied consistently across the ecosystem as we do for any form of policy violation globally,” the statement further added.

Shaadi.com is back for now

As of now, it seems that Shaadi.com is back on Google Play Store. It is currently unknown if the order came from somewhere or if the company complied with the terms temporarily. Going by the statement of Sanjeev Bikhchandani, founder of Info Edge, the latter seems to be the case.

Bikhchandani in his statement said, “Indian companies will comply – for now. But what India needs is an App Store / Play Store that is a part of Digital Public Infrastructure – like UPI and ONDC.”