The Google Play App Store Being Sued by 36 American States

While the Epic x Apple antitrust lawsuit saga is still ongoing, it seems now the Google Play service has come under scrutiny as well.

In the past week, attorneys from 36 states and Washington, D.C., filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google. This lawsuit, just like the Epic vs. Apple one, focuses on Google’s fees of up to 30%.

Google has been accused of being a monopoly and using market power to force businesses and consumers to pay unreasonable prices.

The lawsuit comes from various states such as California, New York, Arizona, North Carolina, Florida, Kentucky, Minnesota, and more than a dozen others. The case has been filed in the Northern District of California, as is likely required by Google.

The official complaints state that these parties are filing to enjoin Google from “unlawfully restraining trade,” “maintaining monopolies” tied to Android apps, and for “payment processing” of Android apps. The lawsuit also seeks to obtain redress for consumers as well.

Specifically, the lawsuit has accused Google of closing the Android ecosystem from competition to assert itself as an inescapable middleman between the devs and users.

With this position, Google can take up to 30% of every transaction made through Android.

Google then utilizes anticompetitive methods and strategies to ensure that only its own app distribution software is used while hindering the progress of others.

It also prevents apps from finding success through other kinds of Android distribution software.

The lawsuit alleges that smart mobile devices are essential tools in American life.

As the suit argues that Google has established itself as a monopoly, Android has made itself the “only viable operating system” available for smart mobile device manufacturers.

Google then makes it mandatory for its Play distribution software to be installed on all devices which operate with Android.

The lawsuit states that even companies such as Microsoft and Amazon have failed to enter this space and that Google now controls “approximately 99%” of it.

To refute Google’s claim that Android devices allow for multiple software distribution apps and are thus “open,” the suit alleges that Google Play Store distributes “over 90% of all the Android apps.” It also states that no other Android app store has more than 5% share in the market.

In response, Google claims that it imposes lesser restrictions as compared to other mobile platforms. This might be in reference to how Apple blocks other software distribution apps on its devices, the crux of the case against Apple by Epic Games.

Epic has also issued a statement in support of this new case against Google as part of its Coalition for App Fairness, saying, “App stores have been given a free pass to abuse their dominant market position for far too long.”

No court date has been set for Google yet, and it may take time for one to be announced. But we can expect more news about further developments in this case in the months to come.

About Google

Founded in September 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google is an American MNC that offers a wide range of internet-related products services designed for work efficiency (GoogleDocs, Google Slides), cloud storage (Google Drive), navigation (Google Maps, Street View, etc.), video sharing (YouTube), instant messaging and video chat (Google Duo, Google Meet, etc.), translation (Google Translate), etc.

Alongside Apple, FaceBook, and Amazon, Google is considered one of the big four internet stocks. In addition, it is the most visited website in the world. Forbes ranked Google as the second most valuable brand in the world.