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Google Urged To Allow App Stores

Other Than Play Store On Android

Jakarta, CNBC Indonesia Phones A United States court judge has urged Google to allow alternative app stores on Android devices, other than the Play Store.

Judge James Donato’s decision was made on Monday (7/10/2024) US time in a lawsuit trial by game developer Epic Games against Google that has been ongoing since 2020. The Fortnite game maker accused Google of anti-monopoly practices and paying device vendors not to develop app stores that rival the Play Store.

The judge’s decision will come into effect in November 2024 for three years after that.

Based on these provisions, Google is not allowed to pay companies or app developers so that they are willing to launch their products exclusively or first on the Google Play Store within the next three years.

Not only that, the judge’s decision this time means that Google can no longer pay smartphone vendors to prioritize the Play Store and make this app store pre-installed on Android devices.

So far, several Android smartphone vendors have also embedded their own app stores. However, their app catalogs are not available on the Play Store.

The court also banned Google’s practice of requiring app makers to use Google Play Billing or prohibiting them from informing app promotions displayed on the company’s website.

In addition, the judge urged Google to carry out the following practices: Google must allow other Android app stores to access the Play Store app catalog Google must provide third-party Android app stores on the Play Store Furthermore, the judge ordered Google and Epic to work together to form a three-person committee. This committee is tasked with reviewing how Google complies with the judge’s decision.

Epic Games has won its lawsuit against Google at the end of last year. Meanwhile, the judge’s decision this time only considers things that Google needs to do after losing the legal case, reported by CNBC.

Google is ready to appeal Responding to the judge’s decision, Google said in a blog post that the termination would ask the court to temporarily stop the changes requested by Epic Games to Android and Google Play.

Because the changes are considered to be detrimental to consumer privacy, restrict developers from promoting products and reduce competition between Android device vendors. Furthermore, the tech giant will also appeal “We will appeal the decision and ask the court to temporarily halt the changes requested by Epic,” said Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s Vice President of Regulatory Affairs, quoted from the Google blog, Thursday (10/10/2024).

Google proven to monopolize the Play Store In December 2023, the Northern District Court of California, United States (US) ruled that Epic Games had successfully won a lawsuit against Google, regarding the alleged monopoly of the Android market through the Play Store application store.

SOURCE : CNBC INDONESIA