Google must lift restrictions that prevent developers from setting up rival marketplaces that compete with its Play store, a judge ruled, upending the search giant’s dominance in the lucrative Android app market.
A federal judge in San Francisco on Monday handed a big victory to Epic Games in its long-running antitrust challenge to the technology giant’s app store, which brought in US$14.7billion in sales in 2020.
The ruling comes after the maker of the popular video game Fortnite convinced a jury that Google abused its power in the Android app market with its Google Play policies.
Epic had argued that Google Play rules and fees stifled competition and blocked app marketplaces launched by developers. The judge’s decision is likely to accelerate the weakening of app store controls held by tech giants Google and Apple that have been under fire from regulators and lawmakers around the world.
In August, Google lost an antitrust case in which the US justice department accused the company of illegally monopolising online search and advertising markets.
