Tinder breaks Google's policies, sets up own in-app payment system

Developers have been criticising app stores for years now for the significant cuts that they take from app purchases. This includes the price of the app as well as in-app transactions. Recently however, one app has taken a different route to avoid paying big cuts to the Google Play store.

Match.Inc, the company behind the online dating app Tinder, has now launched a default payment process which bypasses the Play Store’s in-app billing system. Tinder processes all payments itself when people enter their details.

Developers often face this issue. They have to pay 30 per cent of in-app purchases to Google for their app on the play store. Google however drops its cut to 15 per cent once the customer’s subscription is active for over 12 months.

We have seen many apps remove their in-app billing systems in recent years due to the huge cuts they lose. Apps like Netflix and Spotify take memberships only through their website, where Google or Apple cannot take cuts because its not the app’s interface anymore.

Tinder is however the only major service that is following the in-app system without using Google Play’s own in-app billing. The company doesn’t really fit in the list of exceptions that Google offers to certain apps for using their own payment system.

It remains to be seen what action Google will take against the app and when. For if it doesn’t, other apps may also imitate the trick.