In December, a federal jury in San Francisco found that Google violated antitrust laws by imposing high fees and strict rules on Epic Games and other app developers in its app store.
On Monday, Judge James Donato of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ordered Google to make a series of changes to address anti-competitive practices. Starting Nov. 1, the company will have three years to allow developers to bring their own app stores to the Android mobile operating system. We also need to allow app makers to bill users with their own billing systems outside of the Android ecosystem.
Google has the right to charge developers “reasonable fees for these services,” and that fee must be based on Google’s actual costs.
Donato acknowledged that Google would be unhappy with his decision.
“Google’s modus operandi in this case was to flood the court with comments, many of which were sketchy and undeveloped,” he wrote in his ruling. He likened the amount of Google’s discussion to a “disastrous failure.”
The order marks a victory for Epic, which makes the popular video game Fortnite and has waged legal battles against Google and Apple since 2020 to reduce its power over the app economy.
Epic had asked the court to crack Google’s Android system so it could offer its own app store while circumventing Epic’s rules and fees. Although Donato’s ruling met most of these demands, Epic and other developers will still be forced to pay Google for Android security and content moderation services.
Google reiterated Monday that it will appeal the jury’s verdict.
“The Epic ruling missed the obvious point: Apple and Android are clearly competitors,” LeeAnne Mulholland, Google’s vice president of regulation, said in a blog post. “We will appeal and ask the court to suspend implementation of the remedies in order to maintain a consistent and secure experience for users and developers as the legal process progresses.”
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney celebrated the ruling in a thread on social network X.
“Big news!” he wrote. “Thanks to our win in Epic vs. Google, the Epic Games Store and other app stores will be coming to the Google Play Store in the US in 2025 without Google’s scary screen or Google’s 30% app tax.”
He vowed to continue his company’s legal battle against Google in other countries.
Epic incited a dispute with Google in 2020 by allowing customers to make in-app purchases directly on Epic, bypassing Google and violating its rules. Google quickly banned Fortnite, and Epic responded with a lawsuit.
The game developer is the latest plaintiff in a legal battle that previously involved dating app company Match Group and the attorneys general of all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico. Before the trial began, Google settled the case by paying Match $40 million. It also agreed to pay $700 million to settle states’ claims.
Epic nearly lost its lawsuit against Apple, but a federal judge allowed it to give developers the option to pay for their games outside of Apple’s App Store.
One of Epic’s main goals in this case was to reduce the fees it pays to Google. On the Play Store, Google charges app makers a 15% fee on customer payments for app subscriptions and up to 30% on purchases within popular apps downloaded from the store. I will. According to Google, 99% of developers are eligible for commissions of 15% or less on in-app purchases.
Donato’s order prevents Google from imposing restrictions on how developers can compete on the Android platform in exchange for “payments, revenue sharing, or access to Google products and services.”
Google can no longer use these incentives to, for example, prevent app makers from telling users they can purchase subscriptions outside of Google’s billing system. It can also force phone manufacturers to pre-install the Google Play Store in a specific location on a device’s screen, or prevent other app stores from loading under such conditions. It will disappear.
App makers can also share links with users that provide ways to download their apps outside of the Google App Store. Epic had asked the judge to make it easier for Android device users to download apps from the open internet.
Google faces two other major antitrust lawsuits in the U.S., challenging various parts of its business, including a landmark case with the Justice Department questioning its control of the search engine. The company lost the lawsuit in August. The government is expected to announce a list of possible relief measures on Tuesday.
Google’s second case with the Justice Department over its market power in advertising technology is expected to be decided in the coming months. Just last week, Epic filed another lawsuit against Google and its Android partner Samsung, alleging that the two companies are working together to make it difficult for Epic to compete on the platform.
Mr. Donato considered whether U.S. antitrust laws can keep up with the rapidly changing technology industry.
“The question is whether our high-tech economy has outgrown federal antitrust laws dating back to 1890 with the passage of the Sherman Act,” he wrote. “In the court’s view, that is not the case.”
