A U.S. judge on Monday ordered Google to open its Android smartphone operating system to rival app stores, marking a new legal blow for the tech giant.
The ruling stems from Google’s defeat in an antitrust case brought by *Fortnite* creator, Epic Games. A California jury determined that Google illegally maintained monopoly power over Android devices through its Play Store.
In December, a San Francisco jury swiftly ruled against Google, concluding that the company had engaged in unlawful tactics to secure its app store monopoly on Android phones.
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This ruling, which Google is appealing, follows an earlier setback in August when another federal judge found Google’s world-leading search engine to also be an illegal monopoly.
In addition to this case, Google is also embroiled in a third antitrust lawsuit in Virginia over its dominance in online advertising.
The new order, effective for the next three years, prohibits Google from engaging in practices deemed anticompetitive, including revenue sharing with potential rivals and requiring developers to launch apps exclusively through its Play Store.
A three-person Technical Committee has been appointed to oversee the implementation of these changes and resolve any disputes.
This injunction poses a significant challenge to Google’s dominance in the Android app ecosystem and could reshape the mobile app market in the coming years.
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Google responded to the ruling by announcing plans to appeal and requesting that the injunction be paused pending the outcome of its challenge.
“We look forward to continuing to make our case on appeal, and we will keep advocating for what’s best for developers, device manufacturers, and the billions of Android users worldwide,” said Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs.
Currently, Android devices account for roughly 70 percent of the global smartphone market.
Smartphone manufacturers can use the Android system for free, provided that Google’s Play Store remains the default app store and other Google services are pre-installed.
The jury found that Google acted illegally to ensure that its Play Store was the primary gateway for app payments, including for games like *Fortnite*.
A significant portion of app store revenue comes from gaming, and Epic Games has long sought to bypass Google and Apple’s stores to avoid their commissions, which can be as high as 30 percent.
Epic also pursued a similar case against Apple, but largely lost, as the court ruled in favor of the iPhone maker. Both Apple and Google argue that their commissions are industry standard and necessary to cover services such as transaction security and malware detection.
Google additionally contended that its agreements with smartphone manufacturers helped Android devices compete with Apple’s iPhones.
However, the trial revealed that Google earns tens of billions of dollars in revenue through the Play Store, partly by offering smartphone makers a share of its earnings in exchange for exclusivity.
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