On Monday, a jury here answered “yes” to each of the 11 questions posed to Google. Among them: whether Google has exclusive rights over how apps are distributed on Android phones; whether Google violated competition laws in the way it operated its app store; and whether the company violated competition laws. is included. We make special agreements with some companies to avoid building our own competing app stores.
In January, the judge in the case is expected to rule on how Google must change its business to comply with the law.
This decision represents a big win for Epic Games. Epic Games has been battling Google and Apple for years to break their grip on the app stores that determine how billions of people find and download apps on their phones. In 2020, Epic bucked Apple and Google’s payment sharing system for app developers by tweaking its popular Fortnite app to allow users to pay directly to Epic. First Apple and then Google launched Fortnite from their app stores for violating their rules. Epic sued both companies, claiming the rules violated the Sherman Antitrust Act.
Earlier this year, a federal appeals court judge reaffirmed a 2021 lower court ruling against Epic in a lawsuit against Apple, saying Apple’s app store did not violate antitrust laws. . But Epic’s lawsuit against Google went to a jury and the company thoroughly investigated payments Google made to other companies that were considering building their own app stores to compete with Google. did. Unlike Apple, Google allows apps to be downloaded to phones with the Android operating system without going through the official app store, but the company has agreements with phone manufacturers that prioritize Google’s official app store. is tied.
The trial featured testimony from various Google executives, economists, and witnesses from other companies. Google’s internal email pages were shown on court screens on a daily basis, and Google was also given a stern reprimand by a judge for deleting chats that could be related to the case.
Google’s lawyers argued that the company’s app store is part of fierce competition with Apple and therefore should not be considered a monopoly. Epic’s lawyers said Google clearly had a monopoly over how people got the app on billions of Android phones around the world. The jury sided with Epic and further ruled that Google had abused its monopoly.
“We intend to appeal the ruling,” Wilson White, Google’s vice president of government affairs and public policy, said in a statement. “Android and Google Play offer more choice and openness than any other major mobile platform.”
“Beat Google!” After four weeks of detailed court testimony, a California jury ruled against Google Play’s monopoly on every count,” said Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games. (Twitter) “Thank you for your support and trust! Fortnite is free!”