Daily News Roundup: Tinder Swipes Left on Google Pay

When Google Apps take payments using Google Pay, Google takes a cut of the money. Now Tinder, the dating service app, wants to avoid that fee by setting its payments service as the default option.

Google takes a 30% cut of in-app purchases. If the app offers a subscription, that amount drops down to 15% after the first year. Apple takes the same amount from purchases in its apps.

Some app developers, however, feel the amount is too high. In some cases, this is coupled by complaints that Google and Apple develop competing services that don’t feel the pain of losing 30% of a sale (such as Spotify, YouTube Music, and Apple Music).

Google (and Apple) requires app developers to use its payment system, but Tinder is ignoring that policy in a new update. Instead, the default payment option is through Tinder’s payment processor. Users input their credit card directly into the app, in lieu of using Google Pay. Since Tinder is handling the entire payment, Google doesn’t get a cut of the purchase.

While users can switch the default method to Google Pay before they’ve made the first payment, once they’ve chosen to make a payment directly to Tinder the app saves the credit card details and removes the Google Pay option.

Google hasn’t said yet if it plans to take any action against the policy violation. [Engadget]

In Other News:

• Google’s Fast Pair will add features for Truly Wireless headphones: Android Q will add a few features to Bluetooth Fast pair that should make using Truly Wireless headphones a better experience. Android will show battery life for each earbud and the charging case. Additionally, the “find my device” feature will also report the last known headphone location. Awesome. [TechRadar]
• Equifax will pay up to $700 million for losing your data: In 2017, Equifax failed to patch a known flaw on its servers that led to a massive breach of its systems. 146 million users had everything from drivers license details to social security numbers stolen. Now Equifax is close to settling claims against it, and in the process paying out as much as $700 million. The company will also offer six free credit reports per year to users for seven years. [ZDNet]
• Asus announces the ROG Phone 2, a beast of a gaming phone: Asus took the wraps off its latest gaming phone, and on paper, it should be powerful and look gorgeous. The ROG Phone 2 features a Snapdragon 855+ chipset, 12 GBs of ram (still not enough for Chrome), a 6,000 mAh battery, and a 120 Hz FHD+ HDR display. And it has a 48-megapixel camera. What we don’t know is the price. [9to5Google]
• Marvel announced a HulkTonne of movie and tv projects for Phase Four: Phase Three of the Marvel Cinematic Universe officially ended with Avengers: End Game (and perhaps the latest Spider-Man film). But Marvel isn’t done: it just announced ten movies and TV series for Phase Four, made up of a mix of prequels, sequels, and a few original movies sprinkled in. Notably absent? Another Avengers film. [The Verge]

You can play with a moon rock on your smartphone. In celebration of the 50th anniversary of the moon landing, NASA released incredibly details models of one of the lunar soil samples Neil Armstrong brought to Earth. By visiting a simple link, you can twist, turn, and zoom in on the highly detailed recreation of the moon rock. Unless you’re a lucky scientist, it’s probably the closest you’ll ever get to holding a lunar rock. [TechCrunch]