This recent evening is becoming a real headache for Google. First it was the lawsuit from Epic Games that they lost, and now it’s the lawsuit from some states and consumers in the US.
Now we know that Google will pay 700 million dollars and will review some policies to resolve the antitrust lawsuit against Play Store filed by US states and consumers.
The September agreement, made public this week, includes $630 million that Google will deposit into a fund that will be distributed for the benefit of consumers, and $70 million will be allocated to a fund that the states will use.
A million-dollar lawsuit that sets a precedent
The lawsuit was initially filed against Google in 39 jurisdictions, according to the agreement [PDF], before 50 states decided to join the legal process.
The crux of the matter was the accusation that Google entered into anticompetitive contracts with original equipment manufacturers and mobile service providers to prevent other app stores from being preloaded on Android devices.
This forced consumers to use Google Play Store. According to the allegations of the agreement, this allowed Google to “extract huge sums from consumers” through the 30% of sales and purchases that Google demands for each transaction.
The terms of the agreement are broad. In addition to paying the money, Google will have to hire an Independent Compliance Professional (ICP) to oversee the company’s activities for the next five years.
It must also continue to allow side-loading of third-party applications and app stores for at least seven years and maintain compatibility of the Android operating system with those third-party app stores.
They should not sign exclusive agreements with original equipment manufacturers for at least five years.
There is also the anti-steering clause, designed to force Google to allow developers to redirect consumers from Google Play Store to alternative billing systems.
Google’s parent company, Alphabet, recently revealed revenues of $76.7 billion and net income of $19.689 billion for the quarter ended September 30. In other words, they’re not going broke.
