The National Times - Google wins delay opening Android app store to rivals

The ruling by federal Judge James Donato spares Google from having to meet a November 1 deadline to open its Android smartphone operating system to rival app stores.

A Google spokesperson said the tech giant is pleased with Donato's decision to "temporarily pause the implementation of dangerous remedies demanded by Epic" while an appeals court considers a permanent block.

"These remedies threaten Google Play's ability to provide a safe and secure experience and we look forward to continuing to make our case," the spokesperson added.

The order issued earlier this month is the result of Google's defeat in an antitrust case brought by Fortnite-maker Epic Games, where a California jury decided that Google wields illegal monopoly power through its Android Play store.

The order follows a similar setback in August when a different judge found that Google's world-leading search engine was also an illegal monopoly.

Google is also facing an antitrust lawsuit in a third federal case in Virginia over its dominance of online advertising.

Under the Epic Games order, for the next three years Google will be prohibited from engaging in several practices that were deemed anticompetitive by the jury in the landmark case.

Phones running on the Android operating system have about a 70 percent share of the world's smartphone market.

A sizable chunk of app store revenue comes from video games, and Epic Games has long sought to have payments for its mobile games, such as Fortnite, take place outside the Google or Apple app stores that take commissions as high as 30 percent.

Epic mostly lost a similar case against Apple, where a different US judge largely ruled in favor of the iPhone-maker.

Apple and Google regularly argue that their app shop commissions are industry standard, and that they pay for benefits such as reach, transaction security and ferreting out malware.

A.M.Murray--TNT