Report from The Verge
In Brief – The federal court-ordered overhaul of Google’s Android app store practices is set to move forward after Google and Epic Games withdrew their joint request to modify the remedies imposed in Epic’s antitrust lawsuit. The companies abandoned their proposal to amend Judge James Donato’s injunction requiring Google to allow third-party Android app stores to be distributed through the Google Play Store in the United States with the rival app stores gaining access to all the apps in the Play Store. Donato’s injunction followed a jury’s finding that Google unlawfully monopolized Android app distribution. The judge rejected Google’s proposal for users to download a “Registered App Stores” feature rather than include competing app stores within the Play Store. Google now says that on July 22 it will implement a way for third-party stores to access the Play Store’s full app catalog if they pay a $5,000 annual review fee, comply with security and safety requirements, and are limited to US-only distribution. Google plans to continue rolling out its alternative Registered App Store model in international markets.
Context – Epic’s 2020 antitrust lawsuits against Apple and Google kicked off a global campaign to drive down app store fees. It’s been six years, but they are unquestionably winning. Google, with a more open ecosystem, lost their US trial. Their new app regimes carry lower fees. Despite Apple appearing to largely prevail at trial, Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers, who made it clear all along that she thought Apple’s fees were too high, imposed an order on Apple that proved as restrictive as the remedy Judge Donato imposed on Google after they lost. While the Google-Epic battle looks like it is over in the US, one aspect of the Apple-Epic legal standoff is now headed to the US Supreme Court, with the justices agreeing to hear Apple’s challenge to Gonzalez Roger’s contempt order enforcing the “spirit” rather than text of her injunction against Apple by prohibiting the iPhone giant from charging fees on third-party app store downloads. In the meantime, governments in major international markets are moving to strictly regulate both app store giants.