Google To Pay $90 Million To Settle Legal Fight With App Developers

Google has agreed to pay $90 million to settle a legal fight with app developers over the money they earned creating apps for Android smartphones and for enticing users to make in-app purchases. Reuters reports: The app developers, in a lawsuit filed in federal court in San Francisco, had accused Google of using agreements with smartphone makers, technical barriers and revenue sharing agreements to effectively close the app ecosystem and shunt most payments through its Google Play billing system with a default service fee of 30%.

As part of the proposed settlement, Google said in a blog post it would put $90 million in a fund to support app developers who made $2 million or less in annual revenue from 2016-2021. "A vast majority of U.S. developers who earned revenue through Google Play will be eligible to receive money from this fund, if they choose," Google said in the blog post. Google said it would also charge developers a 15% commission on their first million in revenue from the Google Play Store each year. It started doing this in 2021. "There were likely 48,000 app developers eligible to apply for the $90 million fund, and the minimum payout is $250," notes Reuters.

Wow - That will teach them a lesson

[Anonymous Coward]

$90 Million. Google makes that every 5 hours.

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[gosso920]

Google makes a dollar. App developers make a dime. That's why I search on Duck Duck Go time.

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[Z00L00K]

I don't make anything, but I only have one app and it's provided for free for anyone that want to do radiated power calculations from an antenna based on known factor. Mostly useful for ham radio operators. Erpcalc is the name of the app if anyone is curious.

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[ShanghaiBill]

$90 Million. Google makes that every 5 hours.

No they don't. You are confusing revenue and profit.

It takes Google an entire day to generate $90M in profit.

Not a lot

[Retired Chemist]

By the standards of Google that is pocket change, and it works out to less than $2000 dollars each for the developers. Just a bit over three weeks' pay at minimum wage. Of course, that assumes that the lawyers do not take most of it as fees. Hardly seems worth to a developer, who is making less than $2M a year in revenue, unless they are making a lot less of course. Try multiplying by 10 or 100 and you might have something that is meaningful.

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[sg_oneill]

Most would be eligible for around $250 according to the payout.

Chump change.

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[gacattac]

And every payout can hence be avoided simply by requiring a meaningful amount of documentation. The time spent making the application wouldn't be cost-efficient.

15% for US developers, 30% for the rest?

[jeti]

So small developers from the US pay a 15% fee and small developers from outside the US pay a 30% fee? Did I get this right?

On average, each app developer gets $1,875

[bruceki]

90 million divided by 48k = $1,875. So they get lunch money.

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[Local ID10T]

$1,875...lunch money.

Damn dude... what did you eat???