Google has released the terms of its September settlement with U.S. attorneys general in the class-action lawsuit alleging that U.S. Google Play violated antitrust rules of the country and, therefore, caused its consumers to spend more money. From now on, it will be Google who will have to pay.
As a consequence, Google to pay $630 million into settlement fund for it to be distributed for the benefit of affected consumers, 70 million to a fund for the States and must ensure that the Android system remains open to other stores with some adjustments to the operating system.
Android, more open to third-party stores
The class action 30 states in the United States, representing 21 million consumers, was resolved a few months ago, but only now have the terms of the agreement been made public. And they seem more favorable to the plaintiff than to Google.
For starters, Google will pay $630 million to represent affected consumers (around $30 per person). The allegation was based on the fact that users could have spent less money on apps and games if they had more options to do this, which is not happening (or happening in a reduced way) due to Google’s monopolistic efforts with its app store. To this money is added an additional 70 million for the complainant States.
Beyond money, just as important are promises to open the Android ecosystem across several typical sticking points. Some of these are already known and correspond to Google’s latest efforts to avoid legislative pressure, such as the promise that each manufacturer can continue to include other app stores preinstalled and the reminder that Android 14 includes changes to improve the functioning of these third-party application stores.
Some of Android’s warnings when installing APKs could be considered exaggerated.
An interesting point is that Google should lower level of demonization of APK installation, by “simplifying the process and updating the language used to inform users of the risks of downloading apps directly from the web for the first time.” Currently, for example, Google Chrome says “The file may be dangerous” every time we try to download an APK.
Google is also committed to expanding the support for third-party billing systems as an alternative to Google Play for its American users, with the novelty that developers will be able to display the different prices of a digital purchase depending on the billing system they choose.
Although some of these facts are exactly the same as those that led to the Epic vs Google trialWhen Epic included its own billing system in Fortnite, Google took the opportunity to remind that it will appeal the verdict of the jury which ruled in favor of Epic.
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