The Alliance of Digital India Foundation (ADIF), which represents a group of Indian startups, has filed a petition at the Delhi High Court asking the court to issue directions to the Competition Commission of India (CCI) to take cognizance of the applications filed by the industry body and initiate an inquiry into Google for non-compliance with the antitrust order issued by the competition regulator, Economic Times reported on April 11. ADIF has also asked the court to suspend Google's new User Choice Billing program until CCI investigates the company's non-compliance, Reuters reported. The User Choice Billing program, which goes into effect on April 26, allows Indian app developers to include an alternative billing system in their apps alongside Google's billing system. It was introduced by Google in February in response to an antitrust order issued by the CCI last October. ADIF argues that User Choice Billing does not comply with CCI's order as the underlying problem of high commissions has not been addressed by Google; the developers will still have to pay the company a commission between 11% to 26% even when users pay through a third-party billing system. For comparison, the commission is between 15% to 30% when users pay with Google's billing system. In a statement to MediaNama, Google, however, refuted non-compliance allegations: "At Google we take our commitment to comply with local laws and regulations seriously, including in India. Google has fully complied with the CCI’s order." — Google spokesperson Why does this matter: It would be interesting to…
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