New Delhi, Mar 2 (EFE).- Technology giant Google has removed an Indian marriage app from its digital store amid a legal dispute with several companies fighting over the fees developers have to pay the multinational to market their products.

More than 100 applications from the Indian company matrimony.com were removed from Google's virtual store, Play Store, the founder and CEO of the app developer company, Murugavel Janakiraman, said in a statement on Saturday.

"What we built in 20+ years got removed by Google in a single action," Janakiraman said in a statement addressed to the Indian Ministry of Technology, referring to it as "a dark day for Indian digital startups."

Google's action came in response to the claim by the US multinational against several Indian companies for non-payment of the fee imposed by its virtual store to market their applications.

The legal dispute began last year when Janakiraman's company requested a protection order regarding the payment of fees, which it maintains are "exploitative" and squeeze digital companies, forced to pay for internet monopoly.

The first hearing of the Supreme Court of India for the case is scheduled for Mar. 19, a process that could change the economy of the digital infrastructure in the country if the highest court were to rule in favor of emerging companies.

Google has "forced" digital service applications to use its billing system and "pay 15% or 30% of revenue compared to less than 2% what apps pay for using other payment gateways," Janakiraman said.

In its latest announcement over the matter, Google said it would take action against developers who refuse to pay its fees, offering them an ultimatum with three options to adhere to.

One is to pay up to 30 percent using Google's billing payment system, pay between 11 percent and 26 percent for using third-party payment gateways, or not to charge users through its store.

"Commercial app developers are forced to accept Google policy. Either accept or get deleted," Google told developers, according to Matrimony.com's founder.

In a statement on Friday, Google said it would take action against the few who protested the fees, as more than 200,000 applications accept its payment policy.

"Google says 200,000+ apps accepted their policy, does anyone have an option? Most of the apps are anyway free," said Janakiraman, repeatedly denouncing the monopoly of large platforms that control the network, and claims that applications spend between 20 percent and 50 percent of their revenue on Google. EFE

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