News: Tentative Settlement of Google Play Direct-to-Consumer Antitrust Lawsuit Posted -
The day before, on Sept. 6, an elusive agreement was reached on the class action lawsuit filed by 37 U.S. states against Google's Google.
Below are the most important details about the case and what it could mean for businesses that sell products that are digital through Google's U.S. Play Store.
What exactly is the Google antitrust lawsuit?
In Utah v. Google, 37 attorneys general maintain that Google uses illegal, anticompetitive, and/or unfair commercial practice which hinder the market, increase costs, and make it difficult to choose and choices, which all affect consumers who purchase games and other digital items via Google Play. Google Play store.
Led 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 requiring the use of Google Billing (with up to 30% commission to Google).
The lawsuit is led by AGs from New York, North Carolina in North Carolina, New York and Tennessee as well as the 37 total AGs represent 21 million people in the action.
What has happened within the Google antitrust case?
The settlement has been made public however the details are not yet available. The court has to accept the settlement, however participants in the agreement (including Utah's AG) have requested to have the planned November. 6 trial be canceled.
Google had denied wrongdoing and has not yet commented about this development.
There is no current time frame on when details will be revealed, however as it's an action class-wide The details will be made public once the lawsuit is settled.
What can this mean for game or app creators within the US or elsewhere?
If the conditions of the agreement allow for easing the current Play Store restrictions and the requirement to use Google Billing which is a payment method, it could be a major win for app and game developers who want to expand the ways they promote their apps using less expensive, direct-to-consumer solutions such as .
According to an announcement on Utah Attorney General Sean D. Reyes' website, Google's 30% commission "is significantly higher than what users would be paying when they were able to pick one of Google's competitors instead." The lawsuit claims Google has not kept its promise to keep Android "open open source" in order that device manufacturers as well as app developers could develop and create apps with no restrictions.
We will not know the complete impact until the specifics of the settlement are made public.
What is it about Apple?
Perhaps you're familiar with Epic Games' case against Apple regarding similar issues. In the wake of Epic encouraged its Fortnite users to use its own payment system by giving them discounts in exchange for discounts Apple and Google took down Fortnite from their app stores. Epic later sued Apple and Google in separate cases.
This past April, a 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled on the Apple decision with mixed outcomes. The court sided with Apple in determining that its App Store doesn't violate Federal antitrust laws. However they also agreed with the ruling of a lower court in favor of Epic in stating the Apple's restriction against allowing app devs from sending users to different alternatives to App Store payment methods violated California's Unfair Competition Law.
Epic requested the U.S. Supreme court to permit the injunction to be effective and to force Apple to change its App Store practices however Apple is still appealing the decision. But in August, the Supreme Court ruled against Epic's petition and suggested that the modifications may not take effect until the appeals process is completed.
Epic is not a part of the Utah the v. Google case, since they're in an individual case (with Match Group) against Google. However, Epic's chief executive Tim Sweeney posted on Twitter that "If Google is ending its payments monopoly and not imposing the Google Tax on third party transactions, we'll settle it and join with Google in their new world."
How can it help game designers with direct-to-consumer payment as well as subscriptions?
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The Utah Attorney General's website hosts other resources related to the case.