Google loses antitrust appeal in fight with Fortnite producer

A federal appeals court on Thursday rejected a request from Google to overturn a ruling that the tech giant had an illegal monopoly. The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco upheld a lower court ruling against Google for barring apps from the Google Play app store unless developers paid Google a commission on transactions made within the app. Google charged up to 30% commission on in-app transactions made using Google’s payment processing system, according to the Thursday ruling.

Epic Games, known for producing the bestselling video game Fortnite, sued Google in 2020, alleging that the company’s policy to exclude developers from reaching Android users constituted a monopoly. The three-judge panel that heard Google’s appeal in February held that Epic’s case clearly showed anticompetitive conduct from Google to ingrain its marketplace dominance. Google’s Regulatory Affairs Vice President Lee-Anne Mulholland described the initial October ruling against the company as flawed, insisting Google’s conduct fairly competed with fellow tech giants like Apple. The October ruling will trigger a swath of unintended consequences harming American consumers and developers, she said in a statement at the time.

What does this mean for Google’s practices? Google may now have to abide by the order issued in October, which has never been enforced due to a court-ordered pause for the company to appeal. Google petitioned the appeals court on Friday to extend the temporary pause as it planned to continue appealing the October decision despite the Thursday ruling. If Google’s request for an extension of the injunction is rejected, the company will have to start overhauling how its app store functions and revise policies for users and developers. The company previously argued that executing the court-ordered changes may trigger security risks for customers.

Dig deeper: Read Lauren Canterberry’s report from April about a judge ruling that Google had monopolized online advertising.