A jury ruled Monday that Google had violated antitrust laws to charge fees and limit competition from Epic Games and other developers in its Play mobile app store, in a case that could rewrite the rules for how thousands of companies make money from the game. Google smartphone operating system. , Android.
After deliberating for just over three hours, the nine-person federal jury sided with Epic Games on all 11 questions in a month-long trial that was the latest twist in a three-year legal battle.
The San Francisco jury considered that Epic, the creator of the successful game Fortnite, demonstrated that Google had maintained a monopoly in the smartphone application store market and had engaged in anticompetitive conduct that harmed the video game maker.
Google could be forced to change its Play Store rules, allowing other companies to offer competing app stores and making it easier for developers to avoid the cut it takes from in-app purchases.
Judge James Donato of the United States District Court for the Northern District of California will decide what remedies are needed to address Google's conduct next year. Google said it would appeal the verdict.
Throughout the trial, Google lawyers and executives argued that it competed with Apple's App Store, which is more popular in the United States, making it impossible to operate an Android monopoly.
The verdict provided a boost to Epic's years-long quest to weaken the power that Google and Apple have over the mobile app ecosystem, and came two years after Epic largely lost a similar case against Apple, a ruling that Both sides are trying to appeal to the court. Supreme Court of the United States. That verdict was decided by a judge.
By pursuing the case against Google, filed in 2020, Epic had sought to keep a larger share of the revenue it generates from in-app purchases and offer an app store that would compete with Play on the Android operating system.
Google was fighting Epic's claims while defending itself in another antitrust trial in Washington, DC. The Justice Department and dozens of states have accused the company of illegally maintaining a monopoly on search and advertising, in a landmark antitrust case that could reshape tech power when it is decided next year.
In the Play Store, Google charges app makers a 15 percent fee for customer payments for app subscriptions and up to 30 percent for purchases made within popular apps downloaded from the store. Google says 99 percent of developers qualify for a fee of 15 percent or less on in-app purchases.
Google plans to appeal the verdict and “will continue to defend Android's business model,” Wilson White, Google's vice president of government affairs, said in a statement. He added that the test had “made clear that we compete fiercely with Apple and its App Store, as well as app stores on Android devices and game consoles.”
Epic said in a blog post that the verdict was “a victory for all app developers and consumers around the world” and “demonstrated that Google's app store practices are illegal and abuse its monopoly to charge exorbitant fees, stifle competition and reduce the innovation”.
Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic, posted “Free Fortnite!” on X, formerly called Twitter, after the verdict.
Epic instigated the battle with Google by allowing customers to make in-app purchases directly with Epic, bypassing Google and violating its rules. Google quickly banned Fortnite and Epic responded by filing the lawsuit.
The jury found that Google had violated antitrust laws in two markets, the Android Play Store and Android's in-app billing system. It also found that Google intentionally maintained monopoly power, allowing it to impose unreasonable restrictions on other market players' ability to compete.
The jury disagreed with Google's efforts to pay big developers to continue using the Play Store, in an initiative called Project Hug. Epic's lawyers had described the effort as “bribes” to major app makers, which Google had denied.
“Such a clear verdict will make it much harder for Google to defeat him in the post-trial briefing and on appeal,” Paul Swanson, an antitrust lawyer at the firm Holland & Hart, said in an interview. He added that the district court process could conclude within a few months, and Google's appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit could take 12 to 18 months.
The jury also criticized Google's agreements with Android phone makers like Samsung, which require them to pre-install Google apps on their devices and establish other rules they must follow.
During the trial, Epic's lawyers said Google had deleted some internal chat messages that could have been relevant to the case, undermining the search company's credibility, Swanson said.
“Google's concern was that a jury would look at all of these issues that they've been looking at for several weeks and put them through the lens of 'can I even trust Google?'” Swanson said. “The harsh reality is that Google finally had to face its consumers in court.”
