On Monday, TechPowerUp reported the ruling in Epic Games v. Google. This ruling affects the Android app store in the United States.
What caught my eye was that Google was enjoined from:
- Pay a manufacturer or otherwise incentivize a manufacturer to pre-install Google Play Services or apps on any devices.
- In any way prevent device manufacturers from installing other app stores or distribution platforms on their Android devices—including incentivizing them against installing these other platforms.
- Prevent app developers from offering and telling users about reduced prices for Android apps and subscriptions outside of Google’s payment and distribution ecosystem.
TechPowerUp included two other stipulations in their summary which I omitted here.
In other words, Google can no longer incentivize manufacturers to favor the Google Play Store on their devices.
Telling users about reduced prices seemed to be the the main interest of Epic Games. As I recall, the CEO of Epic Games was not happy that his company was forced to use the terms of the Google and Apple app stores when he preferred to offer reduced microtransaction and subscription prices outside the payment systems associated with those stores.
I don’t expect the remedies in the ruling to take effect because Google will appeal the ruling.