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Information: A Tentative Settlement of Google's Direct-to-Consumer Antitrust Lawsuit Announced

Sep 17, 2023

On September. 6, an elusive settlement was agreed upon in a class action lawsuit that was filed by the 37 U.S. states against Alphabet's Google.

This is important information about the matter and what this can mean for businesses who sell digital goods through Google's U.S. Play Store.

How does it work? Google antitrust suit all about?

In Utah In Utah. Google, 37 attorneys general argue that Google employs unconstitutional, anticompetitive, or unlawful practices that hinder the competition, increase costs and make it difficult to make a decision and all this impacts the consumers who buy games and other digital products from Google Play. Google Play marketplace.

The suit was filed through Utah Attorney General Sean D. Reyes, the suit focuses on "exclusionary measures relating to Google Play Store to Android," with actions including shutting off alternative distribution channels for apps and mandating to use Google Billing (with up to 30% commission for Google).

The suit is co-led by AGs who are located in New York, North Carolina as well as Tennessee as well as Tennessee. The 37 AGs comprise 21 million consumers that are affected by the suit.

   What was the latest development in the Google antitrust suit?  

The settlement was made public, but details are not yet available. The court has to accept the settlement. However, people who have been part of the settlement (including Utah's AG) are asking that the trial scheduled for November. 6 trial be canceled.

Google has denied any wrongdoing, and has not yet commented regarding this latest development.

There's currently no date to when these details are likely to be released, however since it is a lawsuit that involves a class, there is a good chance that the details are likely to become public once the lawsuit has been settled.

What could this mean to game developers or app creators from the US or elsewhere?

If the terms of the deal include lessening Google's current Play Store restrictions and the requirement to use Google Billing that's the payment option which is an option for payment, it will be an enormous benefit for games and apps developers seeking to improve the method they market their products using less expensive, direct-to-consumer techniques like .

In the statement in a statement on Utah Attorney General Sean D. Reyes' website, Google's 30% commission "is much more than what consumers would have to pay if they could choose one of Google's rivals instead." The lawsuit claims Google didn't keep its word that it would make Android "open and open" in order that device manufacturers as well as app developers could create apps without restrictions.

The implications are not fully understood until the details of the settlement have been fully disclosed.

 What is it about Apple?

Perhaps you're familiar with Epic Games' case against Apple regarding similar issues. In the wake of Epic encouraged the Fortnite players to take advantage of its own payment method by offering discounts to them the players, both Apple as well as Google have removed Fortnite from their apps stores. Epic then sued both Apple and Google in separate cases.

In April this year, the 9th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled in favor of the Apple appeal. The court had conflicting results. They decided in favor of Apple and said that the App Store isn't in violation of Federal antitrust laws. They also supported the decision of a lower court against Epic in which they argued that the limitation of Apple's policy against allowing developers to send customers to other alternatives to the App Store's payment method was in violation of the state's Unfair Competition Law.

Epic filed a petition with for the U.S. Supreme court to allow the injunction to take effect as well as require Apple to alter the App Store's rules, even though Apple is still attempting to appeal the ruling. In August, the Supreme court ruled against Epic's petition and advised that the new policies may not be implemented until appeals are resolved.

Epic isn't a part of the Utah case v. Google case, since they're in an individual lawsuit (with Match Group) against Google. But Epic's chief executive Tim Sweeney posted on the social media platforms that "If Google is ending its payments monopoly without imposing an Google Tax on third party transactions, then we'll settle the case and join Google's side in the new era."

What could it be used for to assist game designers with direct-to-consumer payments and subscriptions?

Additionally, our solutions come with an online platform which offers an JavaScript Store Builder Library to assist you in getting started and quickly connect to your application or game.

More Information

The Utah Attorney General's site contains additional resources related to the issue.

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