After a long legal tussle with Epic Games, Google’s appeal has now been shot down. A jury had already ruled back in 2023 that Google’s Play Store and payment setup were running like illegal monopolies. Now, with the appeal denied, Google is stuck with a court order forcing a huge revamp of how the Play Store operates.
A US appeals court has backed a ruling that forces Google to rethink how the Play Store works, Bloomberg reports. The 9th Circuit agreed that Google’s app store rules were unfair and anticompetitive. This means developers can now use their own payment systems and even launch competing app stores on Android.
Epic Games kicked off the lawsuit in 2020, and by 2023, a jury agreed that Google had been actively shutting down competition. In response, a judge ordered Google last October to loosen its grip, opening the Play Store to rivals and giving Android users more freedom in how they get their apps. That order was put on hold while Google appealed, but not anymore.
During the appeal, Google claimed it was unfairly blocked from arguing that the Play Store competes with Apple’s App Store. The company said the judge’s decision to keep that point from the jury gave Epic an edge in the case.
Judge Margaret McKeown, writing for the unanimous panel, made it clear that even if a practice is technically legal, antitrust laws can still shut it down if it’s being used to prop up a monopoly.
Google’s VP of regulatory affairs, Lee-Anne Mulholland, pushed back on the decision, saying it “significantly harms user safety” and slows down innovation. The company isn’t backing down either, and plans to keep fighting it in court.
Can Google still block Epic? That’s unclear
Epic CEO Tim Sweeney celebrated the win on X, saying the ruling clears the path for the Epic Games Store to finally land on Google Play.
It’s still up in the air whether Google can legally block Epic from putting its store on the Play Store during the next round of appeals.
This isn’t the only heat Google is feeling right now. In D.C., a judge is about to decide how to deal with its hold on search and advertising, while a Virginia court may push for a breakup of its ad business, as per Bloomberg’s report.
