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Epic win: Jury decides Google has illegal monopoly in app store fight (www.theverge.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
256 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Well, I’ll be damned. They finally won one it sounds like.

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[–] 128 points 2 years ago (26 children)

I believe that Google wanted in-app purchases in Fortnite to go through Play Store so that Google would get 30%. And Epic wanted to setup their own in-app billing and keep it all.

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  • [–] 65 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    I wonder how that's going to play out with Apple and their monopoly.

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  • [–] 84 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    A lot of this case hinged on the fact that Google wasn’t treating everyone the same. They had a lot of private details for big companies.

    Unless Apple also has secret deals, then this isn’t going to impact them.

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  • [–] 34 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

    Apple wouldn't need to have secret deals. They're running a walled garden over there. You can't side load, and you can't run payments through the app without Apple's approval. That case was about Apple forcing developers not to even talk in the app about the possibility of making a purchase elsewhere, like through their websites. It wasn't a deal, it was Apple strong-arming a developer because they could.

    The problem is Google wanted to have what Apple has: a closed ecosystem they can exploit. But they don't have that, at least not to the same degree. Android is not "theirs", even if they've increasingly managed to make the Play Store more inseparable as time has gone by, and getting worse about that all the time.

    The most they can do is scare people away from using third party app stores or doing anything with Android they don't approve of, and when it comes to things like Play Integrity and Play Protection, they can punish you for stepping outside their bounds by breaking certain functionality (for having the audacity to want to control your own device).

    But they can't outright control anything.

    Which is where the deals come in. They're making shady deals to keep Android as their money maker and no one elses.

    It's anti-competitive, because to spite Google's efforts, there is an actual opportunity for competition on Android, where as on iPhone, there isn't.

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  • [+] 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (19 children)
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  • [–] 20 points 2 years ago (8 children)

    No I think Google tried to tell Epic they couldn't have their own processing for in-app purchases. That's what Epic sued over.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    There are multiple entities with their own payment processing mechanisms running on Android. Epic was definitely able to run their own if they wanted to.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (1 child)

    Many of them are either exceptions made by Google through shady deals or apps that were overlooked by Google before they published the app.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    That’s exactly what sunk Google’s case though. They’re inconsistent. Had they most likely shown they’re consistent to other apps they could have been more likely to get a jury on their side (like in the case with Apple).

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  • [+] 2 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (4 children)
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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago* (3 children)

    Google and Apple both banned Fortnite from their respective app stores and that's what caused Epic to sue both of them in the first place.

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  • [–] 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)

    It's more that Epic added their own payment system to the app (and offered, IIRC, a roughly 30% decrease in Vbucks price for people who opted to use it instead), Google and Apple both responded by removing the app, and then Epic sued them both and even aired a special presentation in Fortnite. All in the same day. Epic intentionally did this.

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  • [–] 18 points 2 years ago (9 children)

    No, then you won't even be able to use in-app purchases.

    Android supposedly has an option to side load, and even install another store, but in order to do it, you get through a series of warnings, and such stores can't even be on the play store. So for an ordinary user you feel like you are hacking the phone. So naturally there aren't many alternatives. The only one that lasted is F-Droid, but it seems to be only used by advanced users who want to run open source software.

    So simply, theoretically they should be able to do whatever they want practically everyone has to stick to play store.

    Play store has a rule, that additional charges need to go through them (and they of course charge 30%). This probably would still be ok, but then certain vendors don't need to follow the same rules.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (3 children)

    No, then you won’t even be able to use in-app purchases.

    That's not true - they wouldn't be able to use the Google Play APIs for payments of course, but if the app is sideloaded they can definitely use any payment processor / method. If the app isn't on the Play Store then Google has no say over it.

    Android supposedly has an option to side load, and even install another store, but in order to do it, you get through a series of warnings

    It's really not as difficult as you make it seem.

    1. Send a link to the user somehow (SMS, email etc); or user goes to the website
    2. Click on the Download button
    3. Open the APK
    4. In the dialog box that pops up, click on the Settings button > then allow Samsung Internet
    5. Click on the Install button

    That's it. There were no "series of warnings" to go thru, no need to flip between multiple screens or anything. I literally just went thru this process to install the Epic store my Galaxy Fold 4 - which took only a few seconds in total - and it was in no way complicated or "scary" at all. And bear in mind that the audience in this case are gamers - people who are already familiar with the concept of downloading and installing programs on a PC, so it's not like you're targeting some tech-illiterate people here.

    The only one that lasted is F-Droid

    Not true again. Aurora Droid and Droid-ify are both reasonably popular, at least in the OSS/enthusiast communities. Yes they use the F-Droid repos but they also subscribe to other repos (Guardian Project, Izzy etc), so you're getting your apps from multiple sources.

    There are also proprietary stores such as Aptoide which are quite popular in the Asian markets. Finally, you're completely ignoring other stores which are bundled out-of-the-box on many non-Google phones such as the Galaxy Store on Samsungs, Mi Store on Xiaomis, AppGallery on Huawei etc. Of course, in the western market the Play Store is the most dominant, but the Samsung store is reasonably popular among Samsung users (as they have regular deals on games and various other apps + some exclusives like Good Lock and other Samsung-specific apps), and of course, the OEM stores are also quite popular in Asian markets.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    Not OP, and, correct me if I'm misremembering, but you did actually used to have to enable developer options to be able to sideload at all, and Android doesn't tell you how to do that.

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  • [+] 6 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (4 children)
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  • [–] 8 points 2 years ago

    No, then you won’t even be able to use in-app purchases.

    I didn’t realize that. Never actually tried to buy anything. You can’t even make purchases in the Samsung store? Or Huawei?

    OP is mistaken - you can make purchases in side-loaded apps, only thing is that app can't use the Google Play APIs for that (obviously) - but they're free to use PayPal or stripe or w/e payment method. Google has no way of preventing sideloaded apps from doing that, and it's not like they can ban them either.

    You are put through a series of warnings just like you are when downloading an executable in the browser, or installing it on Windows.

    Actually, there isn't even any actual "warning" - at least not on my Fold 4 - there was just one dialog to enable installation from unknown sources, with a "Settings" button that takes you directly to the page where you need to tick the box next to your browser, and as soon as you tick the box, you can click on the "Install" button to install it. That's it. None of the dialogs you interact with has any actual warnings.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    But we're not talking about Play Store...

    Epic is, in the law suite they just won.

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  • [+] 1 point 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 child)
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  • [–] 4 points 2 years ago

    I believe that is the crux of it. And apparently part of the trial exposed that some big players have special deals such that don't have to pay those in-app purchase commissions, or at least have a smaller commission. And that's what makes it an abuse of their market position.

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