Google Now Facing Similar Lawsuit To Apple Over App Store Abuse

The lawsuit against Google claims that the Play Store on Android closes out competition and harms “States, their economies, and their residents.”

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Google has been hit with a lawsuit from 36 states regarding the influence of the Google Play Store on Android. Specifically, the lawsuit claims Google can push out competition and force developers to use its app store instead of third-party ones.

If this sounds a bit familiar, it’s because Epic sued Apple in August 2020 for effectively the same thing. In its lawsuit, Epic claims that Apple runs the App Store as a monopoly. App developers are basically required to distribute their applications on the App Store, Apple imposes a 30 percent fee on all app sales/in-app purchases, and there’s no alternative available to developers.

While this latest lawsuit targets Google instead of Apple, Bloomberg reports the claims are almost identical. Filed in a California federal court by attorneys general from 36 states and Washington DC, the lawsuit claims that Google has “taken steps to close the [Android] ecosystem from competition and insert itself as the middleman between app developers and consumers.” The suit goes on to highlight how Google charges a fee of up to 30 percent for developers that use the Play Store, calling it an “extravagant commission.” Much of this same language is used throughout the opening pages of the lawsuit, with it ultimately ending with a comment that it seeks to “bring this action to end Google’s anticompetitive conduct and the harm to the States, their economies, and their residents that as flowed, and continues to flow, from that conduct.”

How Google Has Responded To The Lawsuit

As one might expect, Google wasn’t too pleased to be faced with this lawsuit. Shortly after it was filed and made public, Google’s Senior Director of Public Policy — Wilson White — directly responded to it in a blog post titled ‘A lawsuit that ignores choice on Android and Google Play.’ White comments that Google built the Play Store to help people easily download apps on their phones. If they can’t find the app they’re looking for or don’t want to use the Play Store for whatever reason, Android apps can be downloaded from third-party stores or directly from a developer’s website. This is seen with the Amazon Appstore, Samsung Galaxy Store, Itch.io, APKMirror, etc. They may not be as widely known as the Play Store, but they are legitimate third-party options that exist — something Apple can’t say for how it handles app distribution on iOS.

White comments on that point directly, noting that “We [Google] don’t impose the same restrictions as other mobile operating systems do.” He goes on to say it’s “strange that a group of state attorneys general chose to file a lawsuit attacking a system that provides more openness and choice than others.” Furthermore, White notes how Epic Games filed its similar lawsuit against Apple, saying that Epic “has benefitted from Android’s openness by distributing its Fortnite app outside of Google Play.”

There is something to be said about the Play Store’s popularity and how large of a commission Google takes from developers. However, compared to the Epic Vs. Apple case, Google has a much better leg to stand on. Apps can be directly downloaded from developer sites, third-party app stores exist (and even come pre-installed on Samsung phones), and users can sideload apps if they wish. Those are all legitimate defenses for Google, so it’ll be fascinating to see how the lawsuit plays out.