Google begs court for relief from Epic Games' Play Store demands
Google resists Epic Games' Play Store changes in court, citing high costs and security risks. Epic seeks third-party store access, porting support, and Google Play distribution. Ongoing legal battle over alleged Google Play monopoly.
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Google is resisting Epic Games' injunction demands in a California court, arguing that the proposed changes to the Play Store would be too costly and pose new security risks for Android users. Google estimates the cost of implementing the demanded changes to be up to $137 million, not including potential harm to its brands and the Android ecosystem. Epic's requests include providing third-party app stores access to Google Play's catalog, supporting library porting, and distributing third-party app stores through Google Play. Google argues that these changes would give third-party stores undue benefits, harm user security, and be costly to implement. The court has yet to issue a decision on Google's objections. The ongoing legal battle between Epic Games and Google stems from a jury's decision that Google Play was an illegal monopoly. Epic aims to open up Android devices to more competition and choice for developers and consumers. Apple and Epic are also embroiled in a separate antitrust case related to app store practices.
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6 commentsI think the free ride of the Play Store having back links automatically in 3rd party app stores to “fill the gaps” is also problematic for representation reasons and is actually bad for users, as origin becomes obfuscated and so does support. If you want apps as a 3rd party store you need to recruit developers to publish to it. This is a clear and transparent attempt by Epic to undercut the Play Store while simultaneously benefiting from it at the same time. It’s not a pro consumer move.
I have trouble siding with them on the claims of distribution.
Distributing 3rd party app stores via Google Play Store isn’t hard, it’s just another app, effectively. It would actually allow them to police for exploitation and malware more transparently I would think, since the store itself would have to get approved like any other app.
Android devices don't even require the Play Store. Tons of devices out there are sold without it. Android is on far more than just phones. Google doesn't have as much control over its presence on devices as Apple does with the App Store on iOS.
They could staff a hefty-sized team, have that team ship their deliverables wrapped in SAP middleware deployed on Oracle with metal racked by NASA astronauts on the dark side of the *fucking moon* and I still don't understand how it costs 137 million to CRUD a few models and wrap a REST API around it.
This would be like Target getting the rights to Walmart's inventory, wouldn't it?
These protections are also precisely what the faux-libertarian defenders of Apple and Google's rights to shine their gnomes and trim their hedges ignore.
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