Information: A Tentative Settlement of the Google Play Antitrust Litigation Announced -
On the Tuesday of September. 6, a tentative settlement was reached in a class action lawsuit brought from 37 U.S. states against Google's Google.
Here are some key details regarding the situation and what it might mean for businesses that sell products that are digital through Google's U.S. Play Store.
What's the Google antitrust lawsuit?
In Utah v. Google, 37 attorneys general argue that Google employs unlawful, anticompetitive and/or unfair methods that restrict the market, increase costs, and make it difficult to choose that harm consumers that purchase games or other digital products through Google Play. Google Play store.
The suit was filed by Utah Attorney General Sean D. Reyes, the suit alleges "exclusionary actions relating to Google Play Store for Android," with actions such as closing other apps distribution channels and mandating the use of Google Billing (with up to 30% of the commission going to Google).
The suit is co-led by AGs in New York, North Carolina as well as Tennessee as well as the 37 AGs represent 21 million people in the action.
What has happened within the Google antitrust suit?
The settlement has been announced, but details were not released. The court still needs to accept the settlement, however participants in the agreement (including the Utah's AG) have requested to have the planned November. 6 trial be canceled.
Google had denied wrongdoing and has not yet commented on this new development.
There's currently no timeline for when information are expected to be made public, however since it is an action class-wide The details are expected to be public after the case is fully resolved.
What can it mean for game developers and app developers in the US or elsewhere?
If the conditions of the settlement include relaxing Google's current Play Store restrictions and the requirement to use Google Billing This could be a major win for app and game developers who want to expand the ways they promote their apps making use of cheaper direct-to-consumer options like .
According to an announcement found on Utah Attorney General Sean D. Reyes' website, Google's 30% commission "is much higher than the commission that consumers would pay when they were able to choose one of Google's competitors instead." The lawsuit says Google has not kept its promise to keep Android "open source" to ensure that device makers and app developers could create and develop apps without unnecessary limitations.
We won't know the full consequences until the details of the settlement are made public.
What's the deal with Apple?
You may already be familiar with Epic Games' case against Apple concerning similar concerns. Following the time that Epic promoted its Fortnite gamers to pay using its own payment method by giving them discounts and other discounts, both Apple and Google have removed Fortnite from their app stores. Epic was then sued by Apple as well as Google in separate cases.
The last month of April, a 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals decided on the Apple case with mixed results. They sided with Apple and said that the App Store is not in violation of Federal antitrust laws. However they also agreed with the ruling of a lower court in favor of Epic and ruled that Apple's ban on the app developer from directing users to other alternatives to App Store payment methods violated California's Unfair Competition Law.
Epic requested to the U.S. Supreme court to permit the injunction to be effective and force Apple to change the App Store policies even though Apple is still appealing the ruling. But in August, the SCOTUS ruled against Epic's appeal which suggested that any adjustments may not be implemented until appeals are completed.
Epic is not a part of the Utah the v. Google case, because they've filed their own legal case (with Match Group) against Google. However, Epic's chief executive Tim Sweeney posted on social media that "If Google is ending its payments monopoly without imposing an Google Tax on third party transactions, we'll settle it and join with Google in their new era."
What can it do to assist game developers by facilitating direct-to-consumer transactions and subscriptions?
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More Information
The Utah Attorney General's website hosts additional resources related to this case.