New York (AFP)

The American giant Google announced Tuesday that it will halve the commissions taken from the developers of applications of its online store until the first million dollars released, imitating a similar decision taken by its rival Apple at the end of the year. last year.

“Effective July 1, 2021, we are reducing the commission Google Play receives when a developer sells digital goods or services for the first million dollars in revenue any developer earns each year to 15%,” wrote Sameer Samat , vice president of product management at Google.

"With this change, 99% of developers worldwide (...) will see their commission cut in half."

In November, Apple chose to reduce its levy on revenues generated by applications from its App Store from 30% to 15%.

But this measure only applies to developers making less than a million dollars.

Unlike the Apple brand, Google offers this rebate to all developers of downloadable applications on its platform, regardless of their annual turnover.

According to Samat, the money saved will allow companies "to expand at a critical phase of their growth by hiring more engineers, expanding their marketing team, increasing their server capacity, etc."

Deemed excessive by some developers, the commissions levied by Apple and Google, via devices equipped with the iOS and Android operating systems, have been the source of several controversies in recent months.

In August, the two groups withdrew from their application store the game Fortnite, edited and developed by Epic Games, after the American video game studio's attempt to circumvent the "tax" from Apple and Google.

Epic Games, which complains of "abuse of a dominant position", has since filed complaints in Australia, the United States and several European countries.

Tim Sweeney, the founder and boss of Epic, was not particularly impressed by the recent announcements of Google and Apple last year, which he described as "selfish maneuvers."

"The vast majority of publishers will benefit from this new 15% rate and thus be less inclined to fight, but the vast majority of * income * comes from apps for which the 30% rate applies," he said. he writes on his Twitter account on Tuesday.

"Google and Apple can therefore continue to inflate prices and defraud consumers with their app tax," added Mr. Sweeney.

In a statement sent to AFP, a spokesperson for the studio also said that the heart of the problem was not so much the amount of the commission as the fact that the developers were "forced to use the payment services of Google integrated into apps ".

"Android must be completely open to competition by putting platform companies, app creators and service providers on an equal footing," said the spokesperson.

Several American states are studying laws to allow application editors to avoid the commission collected by Apple and Google.

The Arizona House of Representatives passed a text to this effect last week, which has yet to be approved by the Senate and promulgated by the state governor.

© 2021 AFP