SAN FRANCISCO—Today, a U.S. District Court in San Francisco ordered remedies against Google in Epic Games’ opportunistic antitrust case against Google’s innovative Play Store. The ruling forces Google to weaken its app store’s security protections, host competitors directly in its store, open its entire app catalog up to competitors, and prevent it from making standard business deals with other companies—all unprecedented and all against core antitrust precedents, including a recent Supreme Court’s decision.
Today’s flawed order follows the court’s earlier mistaken decisions, including its erroneous finding that Google’s relevant market is extraordinarily narrow.
“Far from protecting competition or American consumers, the court’s order punishes Google for its successful app store innovations and rewards inefficient rivals. It also confuses the courtroom for the boardroom, with the court exceeding its role to reshape an entire market just to benefit Epic,” said Chris Marchese, Director of the NetChoice Litigation Center. “The Supreme Court expressly warned just three years ago in NCAA v. Alston that judges—even in antitrust cases—are not ‘central planners.’ The lower court must’ve missed the message because its so-called remedies not only restrict Google’s ability to innovate, it also redefines antitrust law to protect rivals, not consumers. NetChoice strongly condemns the court’s rewriting of antitrust law into a rivals-protection racket.”
This ruling is deeply misguided, greatly stretches how courts evaluate market definitions in antitrust cases and will undermine security protections and features that users like and want in the Android network.
Please contact press@netchoice.org with inquiries.