Last week, Epic filed a new lawsuit in the Northern District of California against Google and Samsung over access to third-party app stores on Android devices. In a very quick decision, the court ruled in favor of Epic and ordered that Google reorganize its Play Store to allow third-party app stores access to the entire app catalog.
This development comes almost ten months after the same court ruled that Google has a monopoly in the Android app distribution market and in-app billing services.
Google will now be forced to allow third-party app stores to be publicly visible and operate independently within the Play Store. This means users will be able to download Epic’s own games store and other third-party stores directly from Google Play without the infamous “unknown app” scary screen that appears first.
There are additional changes but we should again specify that these will only apply in the US from November 1 and for a specified period of three years.
Developers can bypass Google Play’s billing system (and the 30% app tax) and inform users about alternative payment solutions. Additionally, developers will be able to freely link users to download options outside the Play Store. It’s also important to note that developers can opt out of these changes if they wish.
The court’s ruling explicitly bars Google from offering any kind of money or perks to device makers or carriers to prevent them from pre-installing third-party app stores on devices. Google is also not allowed to contact developers to stop them from launching apps on rival app stores.
Google will be allowed to implement “reasonable security measures” once it opens the Play Store and will be allowed to charge for those services. Disputes in these cases will be monitored by a special technical committee appointed by Google and Epic.
Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs, has already confirmed that her company plans to appeal the court’s decision so we can expect more developments in this saga.
