Huge win for Epic Games in their court case against Google. The court decided that Google’s Play app store operated as an illegal monopoly and the case also challenged the transaction fees of up to 30% that Google imposes on Android app developers.
Fast Key Highlights:
- It’s still unclear what the penalty will be, court won’t rule on this till January
- There’s speculation in the media that this could lead to forcing Google to offer alternative app stores
- Google ironically used privacy measures (self-deleting messages) to hide the anti-competative behavior internally. (see below)
- Epic filed a similar antitrust case against Apple in 2020, but a US judge ruled in favor of Apple in 2021
Very Brief Background: The court case originally began when Epic Games began collecting payments from users directly, bypassing Apple and Google’s steep fees. As backlash, the two companies banned Epic’s apps from their respective app stores. So Epic took it to court. First the Apple ruling went against them, but now the Google one is in their favor.
Why Google but Not Apple? The big difference between the Google case and the Apple one was revenue sharing deals between Google and various other gaming industry participants such as the game developers and even the smartphone makers themselves. Epic’s lawyers were able to clearly demonstrate that “Project Hug”, which involved both direct investment in games and promotional benefits, was designed to shut out competition. This was the key evidence and arguments missing from the Apple case.
Ultimately, the full effects of this ruling are still unclear and most of the internet talk is now just speculation.
Kicker: The judge in the California court case scolded Google during the trial for deleting many internal chats that would have incriminated the company. The ultimate ironic move for a company whose past CEO Eric Schmidt claimed “if you have nothing to hide, you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.”
That’s a very fair question. I think that from the perspective of a power user (which let’s be honest, giving a shit about this makes one a power user), the difference is sorta bullshit. In Googles case they make it hard but in Apple’s case it’s not allowed at all, so how is Apple better? If Fdroid exists for Android, then choice exists and so Apple is at least as shitty, if not more so.
You’re not wrong.
From the court’s perspective, Apple is the honest party. Apple users are never given the illusion of choice. By contrast, Google sells the illusion of choice while actively working against choice and abuses its market position to do so.
And that’s how we get here.