Washington: 36 US states and Washington DC filed suit against Google, alleging that the search engine giant has control over its Android app The store violates antitrust laws.
The lawsuit alleges that through a series of exclusion agreements and other anti-competitive conduct google play storeGoogle has deprived Android device users of strong competition that could lead to more choices and innovations, as well as significantly lower prices for mobile apps.
New York Attorney General James and the coalition — co-led by the attorneys general of Utah, North Carolina and Tennessee — advocated a requirement for Google to sell in-app digital content to app developers through apps purchased through Google’s Play Store. also accuse. google billing As a middleman, forcing app consumers to pay Google’s commission — up to 30 percent — indefinitely.
James alleged, “Google has acted as the gatekeeper to the Internet for many years, but more recently, it has also become the gatekeeper of our digital devices – resulting in all of us paying more for that software.” Which we use every day.”
“Once again, we see Google using its dominance to illegally compete and siphon off billions of profits. Through its illegal conduct, the company has ensured that millions of Android users Google Turn to, and only Google, the millions of apps they can choose to download to their phones and tablets,” she said.
“What’s worse is that Google is squeezing the lives of millions of small businesses that just want to compete. We filed this lawsuit to end Google’s illegal monopoly power and ultimately give voice to millions of consumers and business owners.” doing,” James said.
The lawsuit alleges that Google imposes technical barriers that discourage or completely prevent third-party app developers from distributing apps outside of the Google Play Store.
In particular, Google creates a series of misleading security warnings and other barriers to Android that discourage users from downloading apps from any source outside of Google’s Play Store, preventing app developers and app stores from direct distribution to consumers. effectively shuts down, it charges.
Google hasn’t allowed Android to operate as “open source” for many years, effectively cutting off potential competition.
Google obliges OEMs who want to design their devices to use Android to enter into agreements called “Android Compatibility Commitments,” or ACCs. The lawsuit alleges that under these “take it or leave it” agreements, OEMs must promise not to make or implement any variant or version of Android that deviates from a Google-certified version of Android. is.
The lawsuit alleges that Google “buyes out” its potential competition in the market for app distribution.
“Google app developers and app users alike are required to use Google’s payment processing service – Google Play Billing – to process any payments for digital content purchases made in Apps received through the Google Play Store. forces,” it said.
“Thus, Google is illegally tying the use of Google’s payment processor to distribution through the Google Play Store – a separate service within a separate market for processing payments within apps. By doing this, Google is able to extract exorbitant processing fees for each transaction, which is up to 30 per cent, and is several times higher than the payment processing fee in competitive markets,” it alleged.
The lawsuit alleges that through a series of exclusion agreements and other anti-competitive conduct google play storeGoogle has deprived Android device users of strong competition that could lead to more choices and innovations, as well as significantly lower prices for mobile apps.
New York Attorney General James and the coalition — co-led by the attorneys general of Utah, North Carolina and Tennessee — advocated a requirement for Google to sell in-app digital content to app developers through apps purchased through Google’s Play Store. also accuse. google billing As a middleman, forcing app consumers to pay Google’s commission — up to 30 percent — indefinitely.
James alleged, “Google has acted as the gatekeeper to the Internet for many years, but more recently, it has also become the gatekeeper of our digital devices – resulting in all of us paying more for that software.” Which we use every day.”
“Once again, we see Google using its dominance to illegally compete and siphon off billions of profits. Through its illegal conduct, the company has ensured that millions of Android users Google Turn to, and only Google, the millions of apps they can choose to download to their phones and tablets,” she said.
“What’s worse is that Google is squeezing the lives of millions of small businesses that just want to compete. We filed this lawsuit to end Google’s illegal monopoly power and ultimately give voice to millions of consumers and business owners.” doing,” James said.
The lawsuit alleges that Google imposes technical barriers that discourage or completely prevent third-party app developers from distributing apps outside of the Google Play Store.
In particular, Google creates a series of misleading security warnings and other barriers to Android that discourage users from downloading apps from any source outside of Google’s Play Store, preventing app developers and app stores from direct distribution to consumers. effectively shuts down, it charges.
Google hasn’t allowed Android to operate as “open source” for many years, effectively cutting off potential competition.
Google obliges OEMs who want to design their devices to use Android to enter into agreements called “Android Compatibility Commitments,” or ACCs. The lawsuit alleges that under these “take it or leave it” agreements, OEMs must promise not to make or implement any variant or version of Android that deviates from a Google-certified version of Android. is.
The lawsuit alleges that Google “buyes out” its potential competition in the market for app distribution.
“Google app developers and app users alike are required to use Google’s payment processing service – Google Play Billing – to process any payments for digital content purchases made in Apps received through the Google Play Store. forces,” it said.
“Thus, Google is illegally tying the use of Google’s payment processor to distribution through the Google Play Store – a separate service within a separate market for processing payments within apps. By doing this, Google is able to extract exorbitant processing fees for each transaction, which is up to 30 per cent, and is several times higher than the payment processing fee in competitive markets,” it alleged.
.