A federal judge has ordered Alphabet Inc.’s Google to overhaul its Android app store, giving users more options to download apps and to pay for transactions within them.
The three-year injunction on Monday by U.S. District Court Judge James Donato in San Francisco forces Google to open its app store, Play, to greater competition. Under the order, Google also cannot bar the use of in-app payment methods and it must give users the option of downloading competing third-party Android apps platforms or stores.
Donato’s sweeping ruling, which would go into effect Nov. 1, comes on the heels of a jury verdict for Epic Games, the maker of “Fortnite,” last year.
Additionally, the order prohibits Google from making payments to device makers to preinstall its app store.
“Even a corporate behemoth like Amazon could not compete with the Google Play Store due to network effects,” Donato wrote, citing an internal Google presentation that suggested Amazon would struggle with the chicken-and-egg problem of attracting both users and apps.
Google said it will appeal the verdict to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals and will ask U.S. courts to pause Donato’s injunction pending appeal.
“Ultimately, while these changes presumably satisfy Epic, they will cause a range of unintended consequences that will harm American consumers, developers and device makers,” Google said in a statement.
Epic, which sued Apple Inc. in a similar anticompetitive lawsuit but with little success, hailed the injunction as a big win for developers and consumers.
“The Epic Games Store and other app stores are coming to the Google Play Store in 2025 in the USA — without Google’s scare screens and Google’s 30% app tax — thanks to victory in Epic v Google,” Epic Games Chief Executive Tim Sweeney says in a post on X.
Epic had requested sweeping changes to Google Play for six years, and an option that would let users sideload apps with a single tap.
Last week, Epic filed yet another lawsuit against Google, as well as Samsung Electronics, alleging the companies were attempting to avoid Monday’s injunction by adding friction for third-party app stores.