Epic Games wins trial against Google: court considers Play Store to be a monopoly

A federal jury in San Francisco (USA) ruled this Monday that Google violated antitrust laws with his platform Play Store, dedicated to downloading mobile applications, which harmed the interests of video game developers such as Epic Games, as well as their users.

The verdict, reached unanimously after three hours of deliberation after a three-year legal battle, considered that Epic Games, creator of the game Fortnite, demonstrated Google’s anti-competitive conduct to charge high commissions per download and share low profit margins. benefit.

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The ruling could redefine the rights that would protect software companies in the Play Store in the futurevirtual store from which millions of Android users install applications on their smartphones.

It is expected that it will be early next year when the judge for the Northern District of California, James Donato, decides the formula to apply to reverse the situation, but it is not ruled out that the door will be opened for other application stores to access the system managed by Google.

Google currently pockets up to 30% of purchases made through applications previously downloaded from its online storegenerating a stream of billions of dollars annually in revenue.

Gary Bornstein, a lawyer for Epic Games, described Google during the process as a corporation that encourages “bribery” and blocks competition in the Play Store.

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For its part, throughout the trial with Epic Games, Google’s defense had refuted the idea that they occupied an anti-competitive position, alleging that they were facing the App Store system, which is only available on Apple terminals.

Furthermore, Google defends this position as a necessity to recover its $40 billion investment to create the network formerly known as Android Market in 2008.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai and his counterpart at Epic Games, Tim Sweeney, met unsuccessfully at the end of last week to try to reach an agreement that favored both parties; a strategy already used by the technology giant with other video game companies such as Activision Blizzard.

Although there are pre-installed application stores on Android devices manufactured by other brands, the Play Store clearly dominates that market and this Monday’s decision is a boost to the hypotheses that Google had engaged in legal fraud that even undermined innovative efforts by other companies.

The technology giant faces another antitrust trial in Washington following accusations from the US Department of Justice that Google allegedly abused its hegemony as an internet search engine by paying billions of dollars to achieve this position of privilege.

Source: Elcomercio

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