Google orders Play Store to open to competitors after antitrust loss to Epic Games | Google

A U.S. judge on Monday ordered Alphabet's Google to overhaul its mobile app business to give Android users more options for downloading apps and paying for transactions within them. This follows a jury verdict last year for Fortnite game maker Epic Games. The preliminary injunction from U.S. District Judge James Donato in San Francisco outlined the changes Google must make to open its lucrative Play app store to greater competition, including making Android apps available from rival sources.

Donato's order said Google must not ban the use of in-app payment methods for three years and must allow users to download from competing third-party Android app platforms or stores.

The order prevents Google from making payments to device makers for pre-installing its App Store and from sharing Play Store revenue with other app distribution partners.

Alphabet shares fell 2.2% after the ruling. Donato said Epic and Google would need to establish a three-person technical committee to implement and monitor the injunction. Epic and Google each get one pick, and those two members pick the third person.

Google has said it will appeal the ruling that led to the injunction and could ask the San Francisco-based Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to stay Donato's order pending an appeal.

Donato said his injunction would take effect on Nov. 1, which he said would give Google time to “reconcile its current agreements and practices.”

Epic's lawsuit, filed in 2020, accused Google of monopolizing how consumers access apps on Android devices and how they pay for in-app transactions. The Cary, North Carolina-based company convinced a jury in December 2023 that Google was unlawfully stifling competition through its controls over app distribution and payments, paving the way for Donato's injunction. Google had urged Donato to reject Epic's proposed reforms, saying they were costly, overly restrictive and could harm consumer privacy and security. The judge largely rejected those arguments during a hearing in August.

“You're going to end up paying something to put the world back to order after you're found to be a monopolist,” he told Google's lawyers.

In a separate antitrust case in Washington, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled in favor of the U.S. Justice Department on Aug. 5, saying Google illegally monopolized Web search and spent billions to become the Internet's default search engine. Google also began trial in Virginia federal court in September in a Justice Department lawsuit over its dominance of the advertising technology market.

Google has rejected the claims in all three cases.