Tech Desk 
Oct 19, 2024
A California federal judge temporarily froze ordered changes to Google's Play Store on October 19, as part of Epic Games' ongoing antitrust lawsuit against the tech giant.
Epic Games vs. Google lawsuit
Epic Games filed a case against Google last year where it claimed that Google illegally monopolised the market for Android app downloads as well as in-app transactions. The case presented by Google has been denied by the jury and Google's propensity to monopolise the market is also mentioned in the complaint.
The judge's order required Google to allow users to download competing third-party app platforms and payment methods and barred Google from making payments to device makers to preinstall its app store.
Google argued that the judge's order would harm the company and introduce serious security, safety, and privacy risks into the Android ecosystem.
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The company claimed that implementing the changes by the November 1 deadline would be impractical and potentially damaging. Google shall appeal the jury's antitrust findings to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Google appeal and Android competition future
Epic Games called the judge's ruling a procedural step and accused Google of using "fearmongering and unsubstantiated security threats" to protect its control over Android devices.
Epic argues that Google's appeal is meritless and that the court rejected Google's request to delay opening up Android devices to competition.
Thus, the stay of the order pause would enable Google to continue its previous business model, at least for now. However, if the appeals court holds to the previous decision, then the universe that exists today would necessitate Google to make several deep changes in its policies regarding the Play Store.
It might release more competition inside the Android world and would provide increased choice for the consumer.
