Google has called a new suit filed by the attorney generals in 36 states and Washington, DC about its app store “meritless” and said in a blog post that the suit’s demands will drive up costs for small developers, the company said in a blog post. The AGs are taking Google to court, saying the company abused its position of power with its Android app store, Politico reported. The suit was filed in a California federal court and was led by Utah, North Carolina, Tennessee, New York, Arizona, Colorado, Iowa and Nebraska. The case challenges the company’s plan to make all app developers on its Google Play Store pay a 30 percent commission on the sale of digital goods or services. The change is expected to go into effect in September.
Google defended itself in the blog post, saying Google Play competes “vigorously and fairly” and that the complaint limits itself to the app marketplace for Android devices, forgetting about competition from Apple’s app store. “We compete for both developers and consumers, and if we’re not providing them with the best experience on Google Play, they have other alternatives to choose from,” Google said. The company noted that Google Play also helps developers succeed and that the suit’s demands would impede their ability to innovate and compete and that it would make apps across the Android ecosystem less secure for consumers. Google concluded that the suit “isn’t about helping the little guy or protecting consumers. It’s about boosting a handful of major app developers who want the benefits of Google Play without paying for it."
The company noted that the case mirrors the one filed against Google by Fortnite-maker Epic Games last summer. The bipartisan group of state attorneys general filed their case on 7 July in the same court as thee other app store lawsuits. It will be heard by the same judge, who has scheduled the trial in Epic’s suit against Google for April 2022.
The suit is the first to challenge Google's control in the mobile app store market, though antitrust authorities in the UK and Australia have also opened probes into the company’s dominance in the industry. In their complaint, the states alleged that Google controls 90 percent of the market for Android apps, and that no other Android app store has more than a 5 percent market share.
Google also faces a suit filed in October by the Department of Justice and 14 states, focused on Google's efforts to dominate the mobile search market, plus another from 38 states and territories filed in December focused on the company’s search systems, and a third suit by 15 states and territories related to Google's power over advertising technology.
Active steps to cement dominance
According to the complaint filed last, while Google allows other app stores, the firm has taken steps to ensure that none of them gain traction, the complaint says. For example, it refuses to allow other app stores to be downloaded from its Google Play Store, which comes preinstalled on all Android smartphones. It also refuses to let other app stores buy advertising on its search engine or popular video streaming platform YouTube.
Google also took steps to keep Samsung, whose devices account for about 60 percent of US Android smartphones, from gaining ground with its Samsung Galaxy Store, the states said. Google offered Samsung an undisclosed sum of money upfront and a portion of the revenue earned from its Play Store if the smartphone manufacturer stopped pursuing exclusive deals to distribute popular apps such as Epic Games’ Fortnite. The negotiations eventually fell apart, they allege.
The company reportedly also paid app developers to prevent them from removing their app from its Play Store and encouraging customers to directly download updates, the complaint alleges. And to prevent consumers from seeking out apps directly, the company has made false and misleading statements about the security of apps downloaded outside the Play Store, imposing various technical hurdles to make it more difficult for users to do so.
The Coalition for App Fairness, a group that includes Epic, Spotify and Match, praised the suit as an effort "to enforce fairness in the app marketplace."
At a Senate hearing in April, Google said its commissions are in line with what others in the industry charge and help fund developer tools and updates to the Android ecosystem. Android also allows users to use multiple app stores or download apps directly from a developer’s website.
