WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Rick VanMeter, Executive Director of the Coalition for App Fairness (CAF), released the following statement after Google announced the high level summary of their proposed Digital Markets Act (DMA) compliance plan ahead of the implementation deadline on March 7, 2024.
“DMA enforcement begins in under 48 hours and today Google published a vague 1,000-word blog post claiming the Google Play Store is already largely in compliance with the law. The glaring lack of detail in the last-minute post shows that Google is not serious about complying with the law. What Google does make clear is that it plans to continue to undermine app distribution outside the Play Store and keep mandating the use of scare screens that discourage direct downloading. Google’s ‘user choice billing’ and ‘developer choice billing’ schemes will force some developers to pay up to a 27 percent fee on payments Google doesn’t process. This egregious behavior by Google underscores the urgent need for strong enforcement of the DMA to prevent these and other abusive practices.”
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The Coalition for App Fairness is an independent nonprofit organization formed to protect consumer choice, foster competition, and create a level playing field for all app and game developers globally. Originally formed by Basecamp, Blix, Blockchain.com, Deezer, Epic Games, the European Publishers Council, Match Group, News Media Europe, Prepear, Proton, Skydemon, Spotify, and Life360, CAF has rapidly grown from 13 to 80 members since launching in September 2020. CAF offers membership to companies of any size — join today at appfairness.org.