Google has agreed to pay $700 million and allow more competition in its Play app store, according to the terms of an antitrust settlement with US states and consumers filed in federal court on Monday.
Google has agreed to pay $700 million and allow more competition in its Play app store, according to the terms of an antitrust settlement with US states and consumers filed in federal court on Monday.
Roughly 102 million US consumers will be eligible to receive a total of $630 million in compensation as part of the settlement, which resolves long-running allegations that Google harmed competition through its app store terms and fees. The other $70 million will be paid to the dozens of states that participated in the suit.
The vast majority of affected consumers, about 71.4 million, will not need to file a claim in order to benefit from the agreement, according to the settlement terms. Consumers eligible for a payment will each receive $2 or more, depending on how much they spent through the Google Play Store between Aug. 16, 2016 and Sept. 30, 2023.
The deal stands to reshape Google’s app store business amid intense scrutiny of its control over Android app distribution and its relationship with independent software developers. It comes as a federal jury last week decided Google’s app marketplace was an illegal monopoly. That verdict was the result of a years-long battle with Epic Games, maker of the hit video game “Fortnite.”
Google is challenging that decision.
“No company, no matter how large or powerful, is allowed to corner a market and use its influence to overcharge consumers and smother competition,” said New York Attorney General Letitia James, one of the officials involved in the lawsuit. “For too long, Google abused its market share to unfairly raise prices and block developers from selling products in other app stores.”
In addition to Google’s payments to consumers and states, the settlement requires Google to change its app store practices in several ways for a certain period of time.
