A US judge said on August 14 that he would issue an order forcing Alphabet’s Google to give Android users more ways to download apps, but would not delve into the tech giant’s business in detail. A jury previously ruled last year in a case against the company brought by Fortnite maker Epic Games.
District Judge James Donato in San Francisco heard proposals from technology experts and lawyers for Epic and Google for reforms in the antitrust case and indicated that he would issue a ruling that maximizes the flexibility of users and developers to download and distribute apps outside of Google’s Play Store.
“After you’re exposed as a monopolist, you ultimately have to pay something to put the world back in order,” Donato said.
He said his injunction will be about three pages long and will ensure Google knows the “rules of the road.” Donato said he will rule in the coming weeks and will set up a three-person compliance and technical committee to implement and oversee the injunction.
“Google has excluded competition for years. Now we are opening the door and letting competitors in,” the judge said.
Google declined to comment and Epic did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Google lawyer Glenn Pomerantz told Donato on Wednesday that Google should not be forced to displace its competitors’ app stores. “Competition gets worse when you impose an obligation to negotiate with your competitor,” Pomerantz said.
Epic’s attorney, Gary Bornstein, asked the court to order Google to quickly enforce its injunction.
North Carolina-based Epic Games sued Google in 2020. Epic Games said Google had an illegal monopoly over apps on Android phones.
Alphabet acquired Android in 2005 and largely restricted Android users and developers to its Play Store.
“Google uses this monopoly power to impose a tax that skims off monopoly profits every time an app developer sells an app or in-app digital content to a consumer. And Google further skims off all user data exchanged in such transactions to benefit its own app designs and advertising business,” the lawsuit states. “Without Google’s anticompetitive conduct, the Android ecosystem could deliver on Google’s promise of open competition and provide Android users and developers with competing app stores that offer more innovation, significantly lower prices, and a choice of payment processors.”
Google argued that consumers could download apps from the Internet and that the Play Store was merely popular, not monopolistic.
But a jury ruled in Epic Games’ favor in 2023, finding that Google has a monopoly on Android apps worldwide, with the exception of China.
Donato then asked the parties to submit detailed proposals to remedy the monopoly, leading to Wednesday’s hearing.
Before the hearing, Epic Games had stated in filings that Google should be forced to allow users to download apps from a variety of sources, including third-party app stores and the web, without using “prompts, alerts, reminders, settings screens, or other ‘friction’ steps” that would prevent people from downloading apps from non-Play Store sources.
Google has said the proposed remedies would require dramatic changes that would harm Android users and developers. They would cost millions of dollars and take more than a year to implement. Google offered to export metadata such as app names from the Play Store to third-party app stores, but only for developers who opt in. Epic said Google’s proposal was inadequate and would result in an inconsistent system.
In a more recent ruling in a separate case, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta said Google violated antitrust laws by holding a monopoly position in search markets. The next hearing in the case, which will consider remedies, is scheduled for September 6.
Reuters contributed to this report.
From The Epoch Times
