Google must open Android to other app stores and billing options, judge rules

In December, a federal jury in San Francisco found that Google had violated antitrust law by imposing high fees and stringent rules on Epic Games and other app developers in Google’s app store.

On Monday, Judge James Donato of the US District Court for the Northern District of California ordered Google to make a series of changes to address its anticompetitive conduct. For three years starting Nov 1, the company must allow developers to bring their own app stores to the Android mobile operating system. It must also allow app makers to charge users with their own billing systems, outside the Android ecosystem.

Google will be entitled to charge developers “a reasonable fee for these services,” which must be based on Google’s actual costs.
Donato acknowledged that Google would be unhappy with his decision.

“Google’s modus operandi in this case has been to deluge the court in an ocean of comments, many of which were cursory and undeveloped,” he wrote in his ruling. He compared the volume of Google’s arguments to a “blunderbuss.”

The order was a victory for Epic, which makes the popular video game Fortnite and has waged legal battles against Google and Apple since 2020 in an effort to weaken their power over the app economy.

Epic had petitioned the court to crack open Google’s Android system so it could offer its own app store while sidestepping the company’s rules and fees. Donato’s ruling fulfilled most of those requests but will still force Epic and other developers to pay Google for Android’s security and content moderation services.

Google on Monday reiterated its vow to appeal the jury’s verdict.

“The Epic verdict missed the obvious: Apple and Android clearly compete,” Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs, wrote in a blog post. “We will appeal and ask the courts to pause implementing the remedies to maintain a consistent and safe experience for users and developers as the legal process moves forward.”

Epic CEO Tim Sweeney celebrated the ruling in a thread on social network X.

“Big news!” he wrote. “The Epic Games Store and other app stores are coming to the Google Play Store in 2025 in the USA — without Google’s scare screens and Google’s 30% app tax — thanks to victory in Epic v Google.”

He vowed to continue his company’s legal battle against Google in other countries.