Information: A Tentative Settlement in Google Play Direct-to-Consumer Antitrust Lawsuit Revealed The Tentative Settlement in the Google Play Direct-to-Consumer Antitrust Lawsuit
The day before, on Sept. 6, a tentative settlement was reached in the class action lawsuit filed by 37 U.S. states versus Alphabet's Google.
These are key information concerning the matter and what this could be for companies that offer products that are digital through Google's U.S. Play Store.
What is the Google antitrust lawsuit about?
In Utah v. Google, 37 attorneys general argue that Google uses illegal, anticompetitive, and/or unfair practices that restrict the market, increase costs, and make it difficult to choose and choices, which all hurt consumers purchasing games and other digital items through Google Play. Google Play store.
It was brought by Utah Attorney General Sean D. Reyes, the suit alleges "exclusionary conduct relating to the Google Play Store for Android," with actions such as shutting down other app distribution channels and mandating to use Google Billing (with up to 30% of the commission going to Google).
The lawsuit is led by AGs from New York, North Carolina as well as Tennessee The 37 total AGs comprise 21 million customers who are affected by the suit.
What happened recently during the Google antitrust lawsuit?
A settlement has been disclosed However, the specifics have not been released. The court still needs to decide whether to approve the settlement. However, those who are part of the agreement (including Utah's AG) have requested that the scheduled Nov. 6 trial not be held.
Google has denied any wrongdoing, but has yet to comment on this new development.
There's no timeline for when information are expected to be made public, however since it is a class action lawsuit, the details are expected to be public after the case is fully concluded.
What does this mean for game and app developers within the US or other countries?
If the terms of the agreement include easing the current Play Store restrictions and the necessity to make use of Google Billing This could be a huge victory for game and app developers who want to expand the ways they promote their apps using less expensive, direct-to-consumer options such as .
According to a statement published on Utah Attorney General Sean D. Reyes' website The 30% commission "is much higher than the amount consumers would pay in the event they had the option to choose the Google's rival instead." The suit claims Google has not kept its word that it would maintain Android "open source" in order that device manufacturers and developers of apps could design and create apps with no restrictions.
We won't know the full consequences until the details of the settlement have been officially announced.
What's the deal with Apple?
You may already be familiar with Epic Games' case against Apple in relation to similar issues. After Epic offered Fortnite users to use its own payment method by giving them discounts and other discounts, both Apple and Google have removed Fortnite from their app stores. Epic later sued Apple as well as Google in separate cases.
This past April, a 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruled on the Apple appeal, with conflicting conclusions. 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, stating that Apple's prohibition against permitting app developers to send users to other non-App Store payments violated the state's Unfair Competition Law.
Epic requested for the U.S. Supreme court to permit the injunction to be effective and to force Apple to modify its App Store policies, even though Apple has yet to contest the decision. But in August, the Supreme Court ruled against Epic's appeal, suggesting that modifications may not take effect until appeals are concluded.
Epic isn't part of Utah v. Google case, because they've filed their own case (with Match Group) against Google. But Epic's CEO Tim Sweeney posted on the social networks on social media that "If Google is ending its payments monopoly without imposing a Google Tax on third party transactions, we'll settle it and be Google's friend in their new world."
How can it help game developers by facilitating direct-to-consumer transactions as well as subscriptions?
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The Utah Attorney General's site contains other resources related to the issue.