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Judge James Donato on Wednesday spoke about dismantling the monopoly of Alphabet Inc’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google’s Android app store in the ongoing Epic v. Google case.
What Happened: Following a federal jury’s unanimous ruling eight months ago that Google’s Android store is an illegal monopoly in the Epic v. Google case, Judge Donato made his intentions clear during the final hearing on remedies, reported The Verge.
While Google argued that opening its store to rival stores would be too much work or cost too much, Donato has dismissed these claims. “We’re going to tear the barriers down, it’s just the way it’s going to happen,” he stated.
Adding, “The world that exists today is the product of monopolistic conduct. That world is changing." Donato will issue his final ruling in a little over two weeks.
While Epic won the jury trial last December, the judge has been deciding on how to rectify the damage caused by Google’s monopoly.
Epic has proposed that Google should be forced to allow rival stores to exist within its own Google Play Store and give them access to every Google Play app.
Both parties agreed that opening up the Play Store is feasible, but disagreed on the timeline, cost, and whether Google should be able to review every app in every rival store before allowing them into Google Play.
Donato plans to ban any discriminatory behavior by Google towards rival app stores, including human reviews.
He also proposed the creation of a “technical compliance and monitoring committee” to oversee the technical details and report back to the court every 90 days.
Why It Matters: In an interview, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeny compared his company’s legal battles with Google and Apple.
At the time he stated, “I would say Apple was ice and Google was fire,” adding that Apple’s “antitrust trickery” was contained within the company, while Google’s practices were more outward.
Sweney had also earlier stated that the trial validated his suspicions regarding Google’s behind-the-scenes practices. "It was really, really interesting to see that my understandings of what Google was doing behind the scenes were actually true."
Image via Shutterstock
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Disclaimer: This content was partially produced with the help of Benzinga Neuro and was reviewed and published by Benzinga editors.
