Google is giving Amazon a leg up in digital book sales

Google is making it easier for you to buy digital books from Amazon, the country’s leading book retailer, than from smaller booksellers. In the Android apps for Amazon’s Kindle and Audible, you can buy e-books and audiobooks using Amazon’s familiar one-click purchase button. That may seem normal, but it definitely is not for Android or iPhone apps in the United States. Google and Apple don’t typically allow seamless, one-click buying of digital items like e-books in smartphone apps, unless the apps use the app store owners’ digital billing systems. Google and Apple then take a cut of up to 30 percent of your in-app purchases. With its own one-click e-book and audiobook purchases in Android apps, Amazon doesn’t seem to be paying Google a fee. That gives Amazon a rare privilege among digital booksellers: It can turn a profit from selling e-books and audiobooks in a smartphone app. Advertisement (Amazon founder Jeff Bezos owns The Washington Post.) Google and Amazon say the payment o ... Read full article.