Delhi High Court seeks Google response to WinZo suit challenging new Play Store gaming policy

The Delhi High Court on Thursday directed Google to file its response to a suit by social gaming platform Winzo challenging the tech giant's new gaming policy for the Google Play Store [Winzo Games Pvt Ltd & Anr v. Google LLC & Ors]..Google has come out with a new gaming policy allowing real-money games for Daily Fantasy Sports (DFS) and Rummy to be downloaded directly from the Play Store. Earlier, such games had to be downloaded through browsers. .Winzo has moved the High Court alleging that Google's new policy constitutes an unfair trade practice as it intends to deliberately exclude its apps containing various games of skill such as chess, carrom, eight ball pool etc.Senior Advocate Amit Sibal, appearing for the gaming platform, argued that this policy also unfairly restricts other app providers and favours certain competing apps alone..Google, however, told the Court that its new gaming policy is a pilot programme and relates only to DFS and Rummy, which have been declared as being games of skill by the Supreme Court.Senior Advocate Sajan Poovayya, appearing for Google, also told the Court that it has taken a policy decision to permit particular kinds of apps to be downloaded on its platform. He added that Google Play Store is not the only store and there are other platforms that allow apps run by Winzo to be downloaded..Justice Prathiba M Singh said that the Court will have to decide the maintainability of the suit and the question of whether an intermediary like Google permitting or blocking certain apps on its platform can be considered a violation of Section 79 of the Information Technology (IT) Act. The Court said that the issue requires consideration as, prima facie, Google is not modifying the information in any manner.The issue of whether an alleged unfair trade practice of such kind can be entertained by the Intellectual Property (IP) division of the High Court and whether there would be any infraction of any rights under IP laws or the IT Act also requires consideration, the judge noted in her order..Justice Singh, therefore, directed Google to file its response on the issue of maintainability of the suit as well.The case will now be considered in November.