Google manages to temporarily pause the ruling that forces the Play Store to open to third-party stores in the US

The federal judge in charge of the trial between Epic Games and Google, James Donato, has authorized a administrative suspension that puts on hold the ruling that forces Google to open to third-party stores in the United States so the technology company will not offer access to the Play Store application catalog to third-party stores, such as Epic or Microsoft, until the Court of Appeals reviews the case.

The video game developer and the technology company have been at odds since August 2020, when Google removed Fortnite from the Play Store after Epic introduced an independent payment system. Thus, the studio sued both Google and Apple -which also removed said title from its application store, App Store- under a accusation of monopoly in the distribution of its applications in its stores.

With this accusation, Epic Games indicated that both companies abused the benefits obtained from the commissions they charged to developers every time one of its services was downloaded and, since then, it has sought to achieve equal space in the application stores.

For its part, Google countersued Epic in October 2021, alleging that the developer had breached the contract to distribute Fortnite in the Play Store app. Finally, in December of last year, the jury in charge of the case in the United States unanimously determined that Google Play and its billing service exhibited monopolistic behavior.

OPENING OF THE PLAY STORE AND APPEAL

Within the framework of this ruling, the Federal judge in charge, James Donato, issued a judicial orderthe beginning of this month of October in which he detailed what Google’s obligations are to promote competition with respect to the technology application store.

Mainly, this ruling indicates that the technology company is obliged to open to third-party storesThat is, allowing other alternative stores – such as Epic – to have access to its catalog of applications and to download them under the same conditions as downloads made directly from the Play Store.

Google will also not be able to force developers to use the billing system that it offers in the applications that are distributed through its official store, nor prohibit alternative payment methods within the Play Store. Likewise, you must allow the developers determine the prices of their servicesas well as include external links that allow you to download your applications outside of your official store.

After all this, Google appealed the ruling and asked the courts for stopping the implementation of these measuresin order to “maintain a consistent and safe experience for users and developers”, as the company explained in a statement on its website.

This is because, as the technology company’s vice president of Regulatory Affairs, Lee-Anne Mulholland, indicated at that time, These changes “would put consumer privacy and security at risk,” in addition to causing more difficulties for developers to promote their services.

SENTENCE PAUSED UNTIL THE CASE IS REVIEWED

Now, based on Google’s appeal, the Judge Donato has approved an administrative suspension of the sentencewhich has paused measures to open the Play Store application store to third-party stores momentarily, until the Court of Appeals reviews the case.

That is, with this administrative suspension the court supports that, for the moment, Google does not offer access to the Play Store application catalog to third-party stores, such as Epic or Microsoft, and maintain your regulations and operation as beforeuntil the Court of Appeals decides whether to paralyze the measures for more time to review the case.

As Google has stated in this regard, in statements reported by The Verge, the technology company supports the decision to temporarily suspend the guidelines filed in the sentence, which have been referred to as “dangerous measures required by Epic”, while the US Court of Appeals considers the request to “further suspend” these rules.

“These measures threaten Google Play’s ability to provide a safe and secure experience,” the technology company stated, while noting that will continue to make their case to protect 100 million Android users, more than 500,000 developers and thousands of partners in the United States.

However, Judge Donato has not paused all the rules filed in the sentence. As indicated in the court documents and detailed by the media cited above, from November 1, 2024, until November 1, 2027, Google will not be able to carry out agreements with operators or device manufacturers so that prevent pre-installation of third-party app storesin exchange for money or participation in the income.

For its part, Epic has also spoken out alleging that Google “continues to spread fear and use baseless security threats to protect their control over Android devices and continue charging exorbitant fees,” as shared by The Verge.

Likewise, he has pointed out that the pause in the precautionary measure “is simply a procedural step” to give the Court of Appeals time to reflect on Google’s request to stay the injunction pending the appeal.

With all this, in the event that this administrative suspension had not been authorized, Google would have had to open the Play Store to third-party stores next Friday, November 1 of this year. So it would have had to allow access to the Play Store application catalog, alternative payment measures and links to application downloads outside of Google Play, among other measures.