Google lost the antitrust case in the United States, Reuters writes. The jury found Google guilty of stifling its competitors and charging excessively high commissions (30%) to developers on Google Play.
In 2020, Epic Games sued Apple and Google after the corporations removed the game Fortnite from their stores. The plaintiff’s position was that both companies’ app markets act as illegal monopolies. Apple later won the case. The first meeting of the trial against Google took place only on November 6 of this year.
In addition to Google Play, the company’s billing service was involved in the case. Thus, developers had to use both Google services to publish their products in the app store.
“Victory over Google! “After four weeks of detailed trial testimony, a California jury ruled against the Google Play monopoly on all counts.” wrote Tim Sweeney, CEO of Epic Games, on X (formerly Twitter).
As Reuters suggests, if the decision does not change, this could give developers new opportunities to control the distribution of products and their monetization.
Google, for its part, announced its intention to file an appeal.
“We will continue to protect the Android business model and remain deeply committed to our users, partners and the entire Android ecosystem,” said Wilson White, vice president of government affairs and public policy at Google.
Epic Games also has its own app store, Epic Games Store (EGS), with a 12% commission for developers.
Author:
Natalia Gormaleva
Source: RB
I am a professional journalist and content creator with extensive experience writing for news websites. I currently work as an author at Gadget Onus, where I specialize in covering hot news topics. My written pieces have been published on some of the biggest media outlets around the world, including The Guardian and BBC News.
