by A federal court jury decided that Google’s Android app store has been protected by anticompetitive barriers that have harmed smartphone consumers and software developers, dealing a blow to a major pillar of a technology empire.
The unanimous verdict reached Monday came after just three hours of deliberation following a four-week trial over a lucrative payment system within Google’s Play Store. The store is the main place where hundreds of millions of people around the world download and install apps that run on smartphones running Google’s Android software.
Epic Games, the creator of the popular video game Fortnite, filed a lawsuit against Google three years ago, alleging that the Internet search giant has been abusing its power to protect its Play Store from competition in order to protect a mine of gold that generates billions of dollars. dollars annually. Just as Apple does with its iPhone app store, Google charges a commission ranging from 15 to 30 percent on digital transactions completed within the apps.
Apple prevailed in a similar case Epic brought against the iPhone App Store. But that 2021 trial was decided by a federal judge in a ruling that is under appeal at the U.S. Supreme Court.
The nine-person jury in the Play Store case apparently saw things through a different lens, even though Google technically allows Android apps to be downloaded from different stores, an option that Apple prohibits on the iPhone.
Just before the Play Store trial began, Google attempted to prevent a jury from determining the outcome, only to have its request rejected by US District Judge James Donato. It will now be up to Donato to determine what steps Google will need to take to undo its illegal behavior on the Play Store. The judge indicated that he will hold hearings on the issue during the second week of January.
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney smiled broadly after reading the verdict, patted his lawyers on the back and also shook the hand of a Google lawyer, whom he thanked for his professional attitude during the process.
“Victory over Google!” Sweeney wrote in a post on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. In a company post, Epic hailed the verdict as “a victory for all app developers and consumers around the world.”
‘Apple is not a get-out-of-jail-free card’
Google plans to appeal the verdict, according to a statement from Wilson White, the company’s vice president of government affairs and public policy.
“Android and Google Play offer more choice and openness than any other major mobile platform,” White said.
Depending on how the judge applies the jury’s verdict, Google could lose billions of dollars in annual profits generated by its Play Store commissions. The company’s main source of income – digital advertising linked primarily to its search engine, Gmail and other services – will not be directly affected by the test result.
The jury reached its decision after hearing two hours of closing arguments from attorneys on opposing sides of the case.
Epic attorney Gary Bornstein described Google as a ruthless bully that deploys a “bribery and blocking” strategy to discourage competition against its Play Store for Android apps. Google lawyer Jonathan Kravis attacked Epic as a self-serving game maker trying to use the courts to save money while undermining an ecosystem that has spawned billions of Android smartphones to compete against Apple and its iPhone.
Much of the attorneys’ arguments concerned testimony from a litany of witnesses who came to court during the trial.
Key witnesses included Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who at times sounded like a professor explaining complex topics while behind a lectern due to a health problem, and Sweeney, who described himself as a video game lover with the mission to defeat a greedy technological titan. .
In his closing argument to Epic, Bornstein criticized Google for exploiting its power over Android software in a way that “has led to higher prices for developers and consumers, as well as less innovation and quality.”
Google has firmly defended the commissions as a way to help recover the more than $40 billion (37 billion euros) it has invested in building the Android software it has given away since 2007 to manufacturers to compete against the iPhone.
“Android phones can’t compete with the iPhone without a great app store,” Kravis said in his closing argument. “Competition between app stores is linked to competition between phones.”
But Bornstein ridiculed the idea of Google and Android competing against Apple and its incompatible iPhone software system. “Apple is not the get-out-of-jail-free card that Google wants it to be,” Bornstein told the jury.
Google also pointed to rival Android app stores, like the one Samsung installs on its popular smartphones, as evidence of a free market. Combined with rival app stores preinstalled on devices made by other companies, more than 60 percent of Android phones offer alternative outlets for Android apps.
Epic, however, presented evidence supporting the idea that Google welcomes competition as a pretext, citing the hundreds of billions of dollars it has doled out to companies, such as game maker Activision Blizzard, to discourage them from opening up. rival app stores. In addition to making these payments, Bornstein also urged the jury to consider Google’s “scare screens” that appear, warning consumers about potential security threats when they try to download Android apps from some of the alternatives to the Play Store.
Google’s empire could be further undermined by another major antitrust trial in Washington that will be decided by a federal judge after hearing closing arguments in May. That trial has highlighted Google’s close relationship with Apple in online search, the technology that made Google a household word a few years after two former Stanford University graduate students founded the company in a garage in Silicon Valley in 1998.
