Around 36 US states including Washington DC have filed a lawsuit against Google, as per reports. The lawsuit alleged that the search engine giant’s control over its android app store violates antitrust laws. It put forward that through a series of exclusionary contracts and other anticompetitive conduct in the Google Play Store, Google has deprived Android device users of robust competition that may result in greater choice and innovation, as well as significantly lower prices of the mobile app.
Reportedly, New York Attorney General James and the coalition, co-led by the attorneys general of Utah, North Carolina, and Tennesse have also accused Google of requiring app developers to sell in-app digital content through the app purchased via Google Play Store enabled to use Google Billing as the middleman as well as forcing app consumers to pay Google’s commission by 30 percent indefinitely.
James claimed that Google has served as the gatekeeper of the internet for many years, but recently it has become the gatekeeper of our digital services resulting in all of us paying more for the software we use almost every day. She expressed that once again they are witnessing Google uses its dominance to illegally quash competition and profit to the tune of billions. The company, through its illegal conduct made sure that the hundreds of millions of Android users look to Google, and only Google for the millions of applications they may choose to download on their phones and tablets, she explained. She further informed, ” We are filing the lawsuit to end Google’s illegal monopoly power and finally give voice to millions of consumers and business owners.”
As per reports, the lawsuit claims that Google thrusts a technical barrier that strongly discourages or completely prevents third-party app developers from distributing their apps beyond the Google Play Store. Furthermore, it states that Google builds into Android a series of misleading security warning along with other barriers which tend to discourage users from downloading apps from any source other than Google Play Store and thereby effectively foreclosing app developers and app stores from direct distribution to consumers.
The lawsuit further alleges Google forces OEMs that propose to design their devices to use Android to enter into an agreement named ‘Android Compatibility Commitments’. Through these agreements, OEMs are required to promise not to create or implement any variant or versions of Android that deviate from the Google-certified version of Android.
“Google forces app developers and app users alike to use Google’s payment processing service, Google Play Billing to process any payment for purchases of digital content made in apps obtained through the Google Play Store.” the lawsuit claims. It further alleges that Google is unlawfully tying the use of Google’s payment processor, which is a separate service along with a separate market for payment processing within apps to distribution through Google Play Store. It affirms that by forcing this tie, Google is able to extract an exorbitant processing fee for each transaction around 30 percent which is many times higher than the payment processing fee charged in competitive markets.