Google countersues Match, seeking its ouster from app store

Alphabet Inc.’s Google GOOGL, -1.43% GOOG, -1.44% has countersued Match Group Inc. MTCH, -1.44% for breach of contract, and wants the dating-app company banned from its Google Play app store. The suit, filed Monday in U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, alleges Match intentionally breached the developer-distribution agreement it signed by using its own external payment systems in its apps rather than Google’s billing system. “Match Group entered into a contract with us and this suit seeks to hold Match to its end of the agreement — we’re looking forward to making our case. Meanwhile, we will continue to defend ourselves against Match’s baseless claims,” a Google spokesperson told MarketWatch. In May, Match — which operates Tinder, Match and OkCupid — sued the search giant. It claims Google unfairly required Match’s dating apps to exclusively use Google’s billing system to be part of Google Play. A Match spokesperson called Google’s countersuit “a prime example of a monopoly using its power to frighten other developers into submission.” “Google doesn’t want anyone else to sue them so their counterclaims are designed as a warning shot,” the spokesperson said in a statement to MarketWatch. “But the primary issue is that Google’s Play Store policies are anticompetitive and in violation of federal and state law.”