Last December, a jury unanimously found that Google’s Android app store was an illegal monopoly; and the judge overseeing the case, James Donato, held a final hearing on remedies the day before.
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«We will tear down the barriers, that’s how it will be. The world that exists today is the result of the actions of monopolists. This world will change,” said Judge Donato. He will make his final decision in more than two weeks. Epic Games, the plaintiff, won the lawsuit, but the judge will decide how the damage caused by Google’s monopoly will be corrected. In April, Epic Games asked to order Google to allow applications from competing stores to be placed on Google Play, as well as to open access to all Google Play applications to alternative sites. This way the user will be free to choose which platform will become the main one for a particular application.
At the last hearing, both sides agreed that the task of opening the Play Store was feasible. But there was debate about how long it would take, how much it would cost, and whether Google moderators would be able to review every app in every competing store before those stores’ apps appeared on Google Play. Google said that the company-owned store, for example, would never have apps from extremist organizations. An Epic Games spokesperson countered that Google reviewing third-party apps would give the company powers it has already abused.
The discussion escalated, and Judge Donato proposed the formation of a “technical committee for compliance with the law and monitoring,” which would include one representative from both companies, as well as a third party, whose candidacy would be agreed upon by both parties. “When there is a mountain built from bad deeds, it needs to be moved. And so be it,” the judge promised.