Google has asked a judge in California to reject the remedies requested by Epic Games after finding that the Play Store was an illegal monopoly. Google argued that the changes would be too expensive and pose new security risks for Android users.
The Chocolate Factory has submitted a brief [PDF] on Monday objected to Epic’s demands, arguing that the internal estimate of up to $137 million to implement catalog access, library porting and third-party app store distribution, plus ongoing costs to keep the whole thing running, is simply too a lot of laundry.
“These estimates reflect technical and assessment costs to Google,” the company said in the filing. “They do not include the incalculable costs that Google would incur from the damage to the Google and Play brands or to the security and viability of the Android ecosystem caused by these solutions.”
Google reported net income of $23.7 billion in the first quarter of 2024.
Google’s objections revolve around three requests from Epic: First, to provide third-party app stores with access to Google Play’s catalog of apps not available in their stores, to more easily link back to Google Play, which Google says gives third-party app stores a free ride to take advantage of Google’s own app catalog. Google said this would also require it to develop a new method for sharing metadata with third-party stores, which it said would compromise user security.
Second, Google doesn’t want to support library porting, which allows Android users to change ownership of apps installed through Google Play to the same app available from a third-party store. Google says that Android 14 already “majorly addresses the purpose of the library porting solution” and therefore additional measures are not necessary.
Third, Google won’t comply with Epic’s request to require Google Play to distribute third-party app stores, because “the Play Store as it exists today is designed to distribute apps, not app stores.” Changing this would be costly and also pose a security risk to users, Google argues.
The Android maker is asking for more time to file an additional brief on other potential legal issues from Epic’s request, which the judge has not yet decided.
The epic saga continues
It’s been six months since a jury in California decided that Google Play was an illegal monopoly, but that verdict hasn’t settled the case.
Epic and Google have been in and out of court in the months since the ruling to reach an agreement on the injunction Epic proposed in April and the court’s decision [PDF] to have Google file the aforementioned brief followed a discussion among “economic experts” in May, in which Judge James Donato reportedly expressed skepticism about the apocalypse claims on Google’s Play Store.
“Google has a history of malicious compliance and has attempted to circumvent laws and regulations designed to govern their anti-competitive control of Android devices,” Epic said of its demands against the search giant. “Our proposed ban is intended to stop Google from repeating bad faith tactics of the past and open Android devices to competition and choice for all developers and consumers.”
Epic has until July 24 to respond to Google. The Fortnite maker declined to comment on the matter and Google did not respond to questions.
Epic’s other major app store antitrust case against Apple, set to be decided in 2021, is also not over.
The game developer largely lost its case against Apple, although U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers of the Northern District of California ruled in favor of Epic Games that Apple could no longer prevent developers from turning to third-party payment sources for in-app purchases to link. The decision was passively upheld by the Supreme Court last August.
Still, the battle is not over and the two recently returned to court for a hearing to determine whether Apple has complied with the order in the case.
According to court documents [PDF] filed last week, the May 8 hearing “exposed serious gaps in Apple’s compliance story,” and additional documents the court asked Apple to hand over “did not comply with the Court’s orders.”
Apple and Epic were back in court yesterday to discuss the case, details of which are not yet available. ®