Judge to weigh proposed changes to Google’s Android app store to prevent anticompetitive tactics

By MICHAEL LIEDTKE and BARBARA ORTUTAY
AP Technology Writers

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Google is confronting the latest in a succession of legal attacks on its digital empire on Thursday as federal judge begins to address anticompetitive practices in the app market for smartphones powered by its Android software.

The San Francisco court hearing before U.S. District Judge James Donato comes five months after a nine-person jury decided Google had turned its Play Store for Android phone apps into an illegal monopoly following a four-week trial in an antitrust case brought by Epic Games.

At the start of the hearing, Donato told lawyers for both parties not to revisit the jury’s verdict, which is now “carved in stone.” He also said that the case is about “competing generally,” and he is “not looking for a relief that gives a helping hand just to Epic.”

The verdict gives Epic, the maker of the popular Fortnite video game, a chance to persuade Donato to impose sweeping restrictions and other changes on how Google manages the distribution of Android apps. Those apps enable a wide range of services on virtually every phone that isn’t made by Apple.

As Apple does on its store for iPhone apps, Google makes billions of dollars annually from its Play Store for Android apps through a commission system that charges a fee of 15% to 30% on a variety of digital transactions. Epic and other makers of popular apps, such as Spotify and Match Group, have been attacking those in-app commissions as an abusive tactic that gouges consumers as well as them.

Epic is pushing Donato to require Google to ban many of the practices that enabled the Play Store to stifle alternatives to the Play Store that would have charged far lower commissions that could help bring down prices and foster more competition that could spawn more innovation.

As the hearing continues, Google will be trying to minimize the upheaval to its lucrative Android ecosystem just weeks after its lawyers delivered the closing arguments i n an even more consequential antitrust case targeting its dominant search engine. A ruling in that case filed by the U.S. Justice Department isn’t expected until later this summer or autumn.

In the Play store case, Google contends a series of concessions that it’s making as part of a $700 million settlement it made in another antitrust case brought by attorneys general across the U.S. already have ensured there will be more competition.

The settlement, reached before the Epic case went to trial, will pay at least $2 to each of the more than 100 million consumers covered by it while requiring Google to lower the barriers that have made it difficult for rival options to the Play Store.

Epic, which has derided the attorneys general settlement as ineffectual, is seeking more stringent measures that would handcuff Google and make it easier for rival app stores to connect with consumers with Android phones.

Under Epic’s key proposals, Google would be required to make all Android apps in the Play Store available to competing stores and also distribute rival options directly to consumers who want to download them. Epic also wants Donato to forbid Google from requiring the Play Store to be automatically installed on Android phones and appoint an oversight committee to ensure the new order is followed.

In court documents leading up to Thursday’s hearing, Google argued Epic’s proposals would have a chilling effect on the Play Store that would do more harm than good for the consumers and developers of Android apps.