U.S. judge orders Google to allow alternative app stores

A permanent injunction filed by California Judge James Donato requires Google to offer alternatives to its Google Play store for downloading apps, games and other software on gadgets running its Android operating system. The case was brought by Epic Games, notable among those who have fought to break Apple's and Google's profitable monopolies on downloads—a $124bn business in the U.S.

Google will also be restricted from paying fees or sharing revenue with companies in exchange for them choosing not to compete with Google's app store. Alphabet stock took a leg lower on the news and was down more than 2% Monday.

The ruling from Judge James Donato in California is the most significant outcome of Epic Games' antitrust lawsuit against Google, which kicked off in 2020. The Fortnite maker accused Google of anti-competitive practices, including paying hardware companies and Android phone makers to not develop competing app stores.

Details:

According to the filing, starting in November, for three years, Google will not be able to:
Pay companies to launch apps exclusively or first on Google Play
Pay companies so they do not compete with Google Play
Pay companies to preinstall Google Play on new devices
Require app makers to use Google Play Billing, or prohibit app makers from telling their users about cheaper online goods on their website (Google Play takes between 15% and 30% of in-app purchases as a fee from large app makers)
Google will also have to permit competing Android app stores to access Google Play's catalog of apps
Google will have to carry third-party Android app stores on its Google Play app store.

Epic won this suit last year; this is the outcome. 'Epic, which publishes a high-end game development engine and maintains a game-centric store of its own, released a statement describing the outcome as a "win for all developers."' The result seems to put Google at a disadvantage to Apple, as a similar lawsuit filed by Epic against it was mostly a win for Apple.