Google is not having its best moment in court. After losing against Epic Games on December 12th, it has now been revealed that they have reached a new settlement in another legal case that will require them to pay a fine of 700 million dollars to prevent the consequences of this second trial from escalating. The reason: blocking third-party app stores.
It is something that the company has been doing for many years, but it was not until last September that lawyers from different states in the United States joined together in a class-action lawsuit to put pressure on the company. Google seemed determined to continue with the litigation, but the recent setback with Epic Games has finally made them accelerate the agreement and close it with a $700 million settlement.
A substantial payment for reaching an agreement
This complaint, which is public knowledge, accused Google of believing itself above market laws and anti-monopoly by hindering normal performance. Now, sealing the agreement, the lawyers of the fifty states of the United States will be able to boast of having brought Google to its knees by paying their equivalent income to 21 days of operations in the Google Play Store: 700 million dollars.
In addition to that, Google will also make concessions regarding the way to manage these stores in the different states of the North American nation, giving the various brands more freedom regarding the installation of digital stores within their devices, without the need to rely solely on the Google Play Store.
Their recent defeat against Epic
Google has not wanted to take any risks of losing another lawsuit after the setback they suffered in the defeat against Epic Games, in which they were forced to readmit Epic’s video games under fair conditions, while games like Fortnite are aiming to return to the app store after years of absence. Besides losing to a strong competitor, the legal precedent set prevents them from having the same freedom as before regarding anti-competitive practices.
Google still has two more complaints of this kind pending, but for now no further updates have been revealed. Therefore, we will have to wait and see if Google continues to yield to the abuses of monopolistic nature that the company has been carrying out since it made Android the most widespread mobile operating system.
