Well, I’ll be damned. They finally won one it sounds like.
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'It’s a win for everyone" except if Google (and Apple) were to start playing “fair”: no more restriction on apps, but they charge full price for the service of hosting and providing a searchable store to something million users. That way, only big business that can pay for that kind of service will be able to use each platform’s “main” store, and every (big business owner) will be happy.
There’s no free meal in there. Not for the majority of users, at least.
So now Google will be forced to… allow third party app stores? Like F-Droid or Amazon and I think Yandex has a big one as well. If Epic aren’t suing for damages I don’t really see what the goal could be. Another win for all the lawyers I guess.
I imagine Epic doesn’t really care about that so much as not giving Google 30% of in-game purchases in Fortnite.
But they wouldn’t have to use Google’s IAP service if they distributed Fortnite as a self-updating apk on their website.
And ask normal people to give their browser app-install permissions?
Those sound very scary, not a very practical way to get a lot of users
Maybe, but that’s not where the vast majority of people look for apks and part of the lawsuit where Epic says they have a monopoly.
If Epic aren’t suing for damages I don’t really see what the goal could be
As reported by The Verge,
Epic says it’s asking for three things: freedom for Epic and other developers to introduce their own stores without restriction, total freedom to use its own billing system, and an anti-circumvention provision “just to be sure Google can’t reintroduce the same problems through some alternative creative solution.”
Judge Donato says the last won’t happen: “We don’t do don’t- break-the-law injunctions… if you have a problem, you can come back.”
Google isn’t being forced to do anything. The judge specifically stated they’re not doing injunctions or anything. If Epic has another problem, “you can come back.”
Now, that’s still a ruling, and a ruling helps dissuade Google from doing certain things, but there’s not likely to be anything “forced” here.
Currently, it’s.more that Google isn’t being forced to do anything yet. The judge has said a few things he won’t do, but the final judgement on what Google has to do are “up to Judge James Donato, who’ll decide what the appropriate remedies might be.”
Epic never sued for monetary damages; it wants the court to tell Google that every app developer has total freedom to introduce its own app stores and its own billing systems on Android
This seems like a poor choice instead of monetary damages. I have the Epic
Games Launcherfree game downloader for games I forget I own. I’m very unlikely to start using Epic’s services over Google’s.I’d have taken the money and run
I think their goal is to let people buy in game currency for fortnight without the play store cut.
Ah ok that’s def a good move for them then. That would probably be more than any payout, long-term.
Hadn’t considered it.
This whole thing stinks. It’s the kind of lawsuit where you wish both parties could lose. The whole walled garden concept sucks, but this doesn’t exactly benefit consumers. Nobody wants a dozen different app stores where we need to set up accounts and payment info - not consumers and not small to medium size developers.
If Epic gets what they’re asking for it sure as hell won’t be what they want. Google still controls the OS so they can just make some shitty third party app store API with requirements just as onerous as IAP that puts everyone else at a disadvantage. If I’m Google, my new motto is “Android’s not done until Fortnite won’t run”.
I’d have taken the money and run
That would have been penny wise, and pound foolish.
Sometimes it’s okay to swing for the fences, even if you end up missing, it’s usually worth the try.
Huh?? They won this one but not the Apple one??
Apple: this is our system and we’ve always been upfront about it. We’re dictators of our ecosystem. You can’t compel us to open up. Yes there’s less customer choice, but we have a right to say how our own system is run, and we’ve always made that clear to everybody. Forcing us to open up our system is like forcing Nintendo to allow Microsoft games on the Switch, bypassing paying Nintendo anything.
The courts say fair enough, that’s correct.
Google: we claim to have an open ecosystem, but actually we don’t. We’re using our market position to impose terms on phone makers, if they’re big like Samsung we might give them permission to have their own app store, with certain concessions. We have backroom deals not to take revenue from some large companies, but to take it from others. We have power over OEMs and we use it to further consolidate our monopoly. They will agree to our terms because they have no other choice than to comply.
The courts say whoa that seems like an abuse of your dominant market position.
You’re looking at it from the perspective of user choice. That’s not what the courts care about, they care about the law. The Google case was always more likely to be a win for Epic, despite Reddit and Lemmy not realising it.
And they probably won’t.
iOS is only on Apple devices, therefore it’s allowed to have a monopoly or something.
Different case. This hung on the anti-competitive nature of Google’s backroom deals with big players. That’s what fucked Google. Different rules for different developers.
But Epic v. Google turned out to be a very different case. It hinged on secret revenue sharing deals between Google, smartphone makers, and big game developers, ones that Google execs internally believed were designed to keep rival app stores down. It showed that Google was running scared of Epic specifically. And it was all decided by a jury, unlike the Apple ruling.
The thing here is that you don’t have to use play billing for in app purchases outside of the play store. The biggest example of this is Fire tablets, where you don’t even have the option of play billing on your app even if you wanted it, and I’m sure Huawei isn’t using play billing either. Let alone the fact you can sideload apps that have their own verification methods. When I bought gravitybox it was verified based on your PayPal invoice #. The secret revenue sharing, while “designed to keep apps down”, is nothing more than an incentive to stay on their billing platform. If Epic isn’t offered that deal they’re still free to make deals with other app stores.
Meanwhile on camp Apple, there are no alternative vendors using different stores and you’re unable to sideload apps without a developer account. There is no alternative to Apple’s billing if you want to charge for something inside an app, which is precisely what Epic did to get banned in the first place.
I 100% the verdict to be appealed by Google. I’m not a big fan of Google as a company, but when they’ve specifically made it possible for customers to have the ability to sideload while Apple doesn’t and they get spat in the face for it, why would they continue to make pro-consumer choices?
Google made back room deals with other development firms to help suppress the use of other app stores.
That’s the issue here. The collusion aspect.
It’s very different than Apple.
* Allegedly.
What exactly is evidence that Google has suppressed other stores, and in what manner ? If you consider say, Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo etc - all have their own stores in parallel to the Play Store. And on all/other phones, you’re free sideload any third-party app store.
Taking my Samsung phone as an example, I don’t see the Play Store being promoted any more prominently than the Galaxy Store, nor do I see any blockers for using the Galaxy Store. I believe this is the same for other OEMs as well who bundle their own stores.
So tell me, where exactly is the suppression here?
While I agree, it seems like antitrust lawsuits gain a lot more ground if the defendant was paying people to switch from competitors which is what got Google here.
i hope this one also smashes Apple’s business to tiny pieces. All these companies are horrible horrible destructors of humanity.
I’m not sure how them losing a part of their potential revenue stream does that…
It’s not as if Google or Apple rely soley on IAPs for revenue.
Google used to allow third party payments. It turned out to be expensive.
This is like forcing Walmart to let companies take up space in their stores rent free and process their own payments. When it turns out a bunch of those little stores are stealing personal information and credit card info and money, those customers go to the Walmart service desk and when Walmart employees shrug and say, “I don’t know what the fuck those guys are doing. You see, we give you the big store, but once you step into that smaller store hey are you falling asleep?” it’s national news and it’s Walmart’s fault and they’re called to testify in front of congress to get yelled at for not protecting customers. This is a weird precedent.
I don’t agree with Google’s decision to force payments through Google. Since congress and courts and media expect Google to police the safety of all apps downloaded from the Play Store, I can’t think of a better solution that also respects privacy, isn’t, “We’ll monitor everything every app does, but pinky swear it’s just so we can make sure they’re being nice to you.”
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Finally a big W. Google backdoored Android with Google Play Services and gives itself special permissions that no other app can do. They should be under the same limitations that other apps are reserved to. That’s why projects like Sandboxed Google play is really awesome.
I run e/OS, I don’t have google app store or any of the related service software installed. Yet I am able to use a cleaned up version of android and still have access to the google app store through an anonymous account using the in built app.
Epic won this case against google…
Epic lost the same case against apple, with which none of the above would be possible.
I’m not advocating for google, obviously I avoid them. But that’s BS, I hope this is used as precedent to bring a new case against apple.
Seriously this is crazy. Apple somehow winning is way worse as there is simply no way to install third party apps on IOS. Android makes the risks clear but it’s still at least possible if you click install anyway.
In terms of being a monopoly, in the US ios has more market share anyway. Google’s lawyers must have really made some big mistake.
Both lawsuits are going into round 2, afaik.
This is so wild. Google allows side loading and 3rd party app stores…and that is the reason they were found guilty.
Unlike Apple, Google allows people to download apps onto phones running its Android operating system without going through its official app store, but the company strikes deals with phone manufacturers to favor Google’s official app store.
So because they strike deals to favor their store, even though they allow 3rd party stores to begin with, they’ve violated the SAA.
Meanwhile, Apple who refuses to allow competition or 3rd party app stores is sitting pretty because…well, they haven’t “favored” their own store over rival stores. BECAUSE RIVAL STORES CANT EXIST. I don’t know how you could favor your store any harder than that??
The legal shenanigans around all of this are frustrating to watch as a lay person.
looks at epic “striking deals” to have games on their storefront
thats ok with me. Wouldnt buy a ios device anyways. Exactly, because they dont allow third party apps.
I’m pretty sure this has nothing to do with the EU lawsuits, right?
Both Google and Apple would still have to open up soon (at least in EU)
Sorry if it’s a stupid question.
It’s something else. Here it’s US antitrust monopoly.
Google made deals with games and special contracts with other apps in order to kill competition.
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While I understand the concern over the single appstore monopoly that we have on any device, I think it’s worth remembering what ecosystem android and IOS came into.
The old multimedia phones that were sold in the mid 00s were effectively “smart”. Many of them ran java and you could install programs, and freely install ringtones, and browsers that actually worked like opera mini/mobile. The thing is you couldnt by default. At least not in the US. The devices were locked down and everything you did went through the carrier’s store. And US telecom services are some of the greediest and scummiest companies out there so you couldnt even use your own mp3 files as a ringtone.
Apple combated this with their closed off ecosystem, but android did face issues with fragmentation in the early days and needed a way to prevent the telecoms branded phones from stinking up the ecosystem. They did this by leveraging the play services and play store. From the playstore they can also since mainline release various peacemeal updates which helps resolve their other issue with fragmentation and thats android device being abandoned.
Sure enough you can still release your own version of android without it, amazon’s tablets and tv sticks do pretty well.
That said I do think it’s a good to help people move past the default and open up the platforms more, I just wish it would apply to all smart devices,
Yup. I was part of Verizon’s app development program and it was a fucking joke. Even if the dev tools and build chain wasn’t a complete mess, and even if the dev license wasn’t expensive, and even if it wasn’t almost impossible to even get test hardware… Even if you managed to build something more useful than snake, you’d still have to wait months and months and months for Verizon to sign your apps and then months more before they’d be available on any handset. I’m legitimately not sure it was even possible for a small dev to get anything approved.
Open app stores were and still are amazing. I get that people want even more freedom, but coming from the trauma of feature phone development, I find it hard to get upset about this, especially considering Android makes it dead simple to sideload.
Thanks, ChatGPT.
I don’t think so
Thanks, ChatGPT.
I don’t think so
Sure smells like it.
Nobody was asking for a history lesson of the past that doesn’t draw any real conclusion to the current situation, at the end of the comment.
Hmm
Absolutely worth the downvotes. It is a paragraph worth of nothing. Literally nothing of value or relevance added to the thread.
A little more tact could bring your comments a long way, my friend.
Nah, call them as you see them. No need to F around when it comes to people polluting the Internet.
Well thats just mean for no particular reason.
I thought it was a good read and reminded me of the garbage I did at one time live through involving non-iphones
Sorry people are being mean on the internet, they may not be aware they dont have to consume all information that is posted in front of them.
Well thats just mean for no particular reason.
Your comment was a nonsensical history lesson, and didn’t serve the current conversation of the topic being discussed.
Absolutely worth the downvotes. It is a paragraph worth of nothing. Literally nothing of value or relevance added to the thread.
Agree. Smells like a ChatGPT flavored comment.
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Great! Now do Apple
Why? Just don’t buy apple.
That isn’t really relevant when it comes to holding them to a different legal standard.
And if you don’t own apple products, why would you care?
Exactly. The locked down nature is part of the Apple experience, this is what their customers are paying for
The law should still apply equally to every company, shouldn’t it?
Apple doesn’t licence out their operating system.
It was ruled previously that Apple don’t have a large enough market share
But if they force Google to open their app store, I hope that do it for fucking everyone.
At least on Google devices you still can sideload apps, and fairly easy TBH. My biggest annoyance is the “you can’t buy stuff in apps without giving us a cut” which fucked up stuff like ebook apps etc
Yeah, the Kindle app pretty blatantly tells you why they removed in-app purchases.
Which is weird because they have a larger market share than Google >.>
They have a 99% market share on iPhone though. Google has less on Android.
Who has the other 1% on iPhone?
Jailbroken I assume
No they don’t.
They absolutely do. This case would only look at US market share, they don’t care about anywhere else. And why would they? Imagine a company with 10% US market share and 90% worldwide market share, would you expect US courts to deem that a monopoly?
In the US, market share of Apple is between 50-60% while Android is between 40-50%, depending on the source. Worldwide is more in favour of Android, but this is a US lawsuit.
…in the US
Like this case?
Which is all the US courts would be looking at.
In the US it does.
Yes, but US favour companies over people.
I’m pretty sure the ruling in this post is in the US.
And it’s two companies fighting, how far did the anti monopoly pushes against apple and google get before Epic took them up because they were a profitable venture?
That’s why we are surprised. But given this went through, maybe they could go for it again who knows.
Yeah but they also have more rights than the consumer, rather than the other way about lol
I’m pretty sure the ruling in this post is in the US
“Sir, SIR, we are a nonprofit? Please leave or I will have to launch the facility into iFreespace and stay hovering a foot above ground for the rest of time as per the iNflanational iFukU-nion that is a slight inconvenience for anyone not part of the of the 23.000.001 iToUrPPs living aboard the ilolTax Inflationstate iLevitate CorpoHappytat KZ-23”
And consoles.
It’s not an apples to apples comparable situation. Pun intended!
About the only benefit I can personally see from this is the ability to fully integrate F-Droid as an app store in my device, with proper automatic background updates, and without requiring root solutions that void my work’s security measures for mobile devices. On the other hand, I can see Huawei, Amazon, and Epic jumping to the fray with their own app stores and system services, and maybe Google Play being far more lenient with subscription services like Spotify’s in their own App Store. Altogether, I personally loathe Epic’s approach, but appreciate the consequences of their lawsuit.
Droidify with adb or Shizuku can already do that. But it needs Android 12+. Then it can do unattended updates.
Problem is, ADB requires enabling developer mode, and guess what - my company also blocks access to devices with developer mode on! (Also, the fact that Shizuku doesn’t work correctly over mobile because it requires stable Wi-Fi to fake a wireless debug connection doesn’t help matters.)
Shizuku only requires WiFi once per boot. But it also needs ADB, so it sadly won’t work for your company phone.
I think the Session Installer mode allows updates without a dialog for apps already installed by Droidify without dev mode or adb.
Amazon has/had an app store, it was terrible. Though I welcome competitors to step up after this.
Amazon still has its own app store open - mostly because it’s the one Microsoft used as the base for their Android compatibility layer. I expect this ruling to give Amazon a breath of fresh air as “the alternative app store”.
This may force Google to address their terrible dispute resolution policies though. If they keep removing software without providing any meaningful dispute resolution, then I would hope that there’s a possibility for alternate repositories to fill that void.
Increased competition is ALWAYS better for the customer.
You’re forgetting AppBrain from like 15 years ago.
I agree on the concerns, but it’s a virtually universal truth, so long as they’re actually forced to treat other app stores fairly. We might end up with a true third party stepping in to claim the throne, at least until the mega-corps reverse all the optimization they’ve created for their own benefits (even things like searches for apps are not fully intended to benefit the user right now, things most people don’t really realize).
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