Court Orders Google to Make Installing Third-Party App Stores on Android Easier

A month after Epic Games and Google appeared to have ended their years-long dispute over the future of app distribution on Android, the two sides met again in a San Francisco courtroom. Judge James Donato ruled that Google must make it easier to install competing app stores.

It has been nearly three years since a jury unanimously found that Google held an illegal monopoly over Android app distribution. About two years ago, Judge Donato decided that the best way to break up that monopoly was to force Google to open up its ecosystem: to host third-party stores right inside Google Play and, for several years, to give competitors full access to the company's app catalog.

Epic, however, insisted that Google was still putting up obstacles, and it staged a demonstration right there in the courtroom. The judge agreed that some of the steps amounted to needless “anticompetitive friction,” and he ordered them removed.

A Search That Leads to Walmart

Epic's attorney Yonatan Even showed that typing the query “store for apps” into Google Play returns no third-party app stores in the results — but ordinary retail chains do show up. “Wait, why did Walmart pop up here?” the judge marveled. “That is not acceptable.” Donato demanded that the results be fixed for every variation of the query, “even ones phrased correctly only 70 percent of the time.” Google's lawyers agreed.

The judge was also incensed that before the “Install” button, users are first prompted to tap “Explore.” “There's nothing like that with Apple Music,” he noted, and he ordered “Explore” replaced with “Install.”

Epic also demonstrated that searching for “app store” — or even a specific store such as Aptoide, the first third-party store to land in the American Google Play — does not produce the usual list; instead the system shows a separate banner leading to a dedicated page. Even stressed that this deters large companies as well: Amazon, for instance, might decline to launch a store, forfeiting any chance of appearing in the normal results.

“Friction With No Point at All”

Google countered that app stores are a special category with expanded privileges, and therefore warrant a warning. Donato replied that a warning on the store's own page is enough, and that the confirming “is this what you searched for?” screen is superfluous. “We all know that when you type an app's name into a store, you get one thing you want and ten you don't,” the judge said, reasoning that an ordinary user would not be confused by getting exactly what they searched for. “Get rid of that screen; there's no point to it. It's friction with no purpose.”

The judge demanded the changes fast: “Do it within a week. If any difficulties come up — let me know.”

Source: The Verge