Match to seek temporary restraining order against Google

Match Group Inc. on Tuesday said it plans to ask a federal judge in California to issue a temporary restraining order against Alphabet Inc.’s Google to prevent the company from throwing Match off of its Google Play app store on June 1. The filing comes a day after Match sued the search giant for allegedly breaking antitrust laws with billing rules for the Android app store. “As you know, they threatened to do this if we do not use Google Play Billing (GPB) exclusively,” Jared Sine, Match’s chief business affairs and legal officer, said in a blog post Tuesday. “This would eliminate user choice, force our app users to make payments on Google Play Billing, prevent users from having the myriad of consumer-friendly payment and billing options that we offer (and Google does not), and destroy the exceptional user experience our users prefer with our in-app payment system.” Google recently made some concessions on its app store, including allowing Spotify Technology SA to use its own payments system in its app. In the filing, Match said it asked Google if it could adopt the new “user billing” feature like Spotify, but Google refused.

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