Zomato and Swiggy have paused their in-app gamification process after receiving a notice from Google. According to the tech giant, ‘gambling’ or real-money gambling violates Google Play rules.
The notice was sent between Tuesday evening and Wednesday morning, source known to the matter said.
“The notices have been sent by Google’s global Play store team, with its Indian team relatively unaware about the matter. Zomato and Swiggy are not the only companies, Google has sent notices to. There are some more,” said one of the individuals, who didn’t want to be named.
Many apps have launched their in-app features to attract customers revolving around ongoing Indian Premier League (IPL). These schemes require customers to invest real money and gamble.
While Zomato was running a scheme called Zomato Premier League, where users could make predictions about the ongoing IPL match, and earn cashbacks; Swiggy was running Match Day Mania offers during IPL matches.
Meanwhile, Zomato have termed Google’s notice unfair.
Food tech firms Zomato and Swiggy have suffered greatly due to the coronavirus pandemic. The apps had high hopes from the IPL-season to boost its sales.
“Yes, we have received a notice from Google. We believe that the notice is unfair, but we are a small company and have already realigned our business strategy to comply with Google’s guidelines,” a Zomato spokesperson told Economic Times.
The move comes a week after Google had removed Paytm app for few hours from its play store, alleging the firm of violating its guidelines by promoting in-app betting activities.
SoftBank-backed firm had said that Google arm-twisted to comply with its biased play store policies to create tech giant’s market dominance.
However, the app was restored after Paytm removed the ‘cashback’ feature associated to an in-app game.
Interestingly, Google had clarified on Tuesday that apps that choose to sell digital content through its Play Store will have to pay a percentage of the in-app purchase as a fee.