For once, the CNIL is not punishing Google. The Paris Commercial Court has just declared the American giant guilty of abusive commercial practices vis-à-vis third-party developers. He will have to pay a fine of 2 million euros. A list of seven abusive clauses was found in contracts signed in 2015 and 2016. Google must now remove them within the next three months or risk paying a penalty of 10,000 euros per day of delay.
Another procedure in progress
The case dates back to 2018. The Minister of the Economy Bruno Le Maire then went to war against the method of remuneration for the App Store and Google Play application stores. He challenged the very principle of tariffs imposed unilaterally on developers, but not only. He also denounced that the fact that they can recover data from applications, modify contracts, suspend or delete an application in a completely asymmetric relationship.
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At the end of the judgment, Google pointed out that its contracts had evolved a lot since 2016: its rate of remuneration fell from 30 to 15% and developers can now break the agreements themselves.
A similar procedure is underway at the initiative of the Directorate General for Competition, Consumer Affairs and Fraud Prevention (DGCCRF).