Yesterday, telecom operator Bharti Airtel, which once laid claim to being the largest music company in India, pulled the covers off Wynk, a rather impressive, Internet based music streaming service, which, at best, allows streaming of a maximum of 500 songs for Rs 129 per month without data charges. Vodafone had launched its own music streaming service in December 2013. The application has been developed by BSB, a company founded by Airtel's promoter group Bharti Enterprises. In February 2014, neither Airtel not BSB had responded to an email sent by MediaNama, requesting confirmation about the music service, which had been expected to be launched by March 2014. Our take on Wynk Key points 1. Violating App Store and Play Store Guidelines? Airtel allows subscription and purchase of music from within the application. To us, it appears that the company is thus violating restrictions placed by Google and Apple on apps purchased from their platforms. The Play store guidelines state, regarding in-app purchases: Developers offering additional content, services or functionality within another category of app downloaded from Google Play must use Google Play's in-app billing service as the method of payment, except: where payment is primarily for physical goods or services (e.g., buying movie tickets, or buying a publication where the price also includes a hard copy subscription); or where payment is for digital content or goods that may be consumed outside of the app itself (e.g., buying songs that can be played on other music players)." The Apple App Store policy states: 11.1 Apps that…
