The Fortnite Creator Questions Google’s Ability To Take A Cut Of In-App Purchases.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – Google will try to defend a lucrative chunk of its internet empire on Monday while still embroiled in the largest antitrust trial in the United States in a quarter-century.

The most recent threat will be heard in a federal court in San Francisco, where a 10-person jury will consider whether Google’s digital payment processing system in the Play Store, which distributes apps for phones running its Android software, has illegally raised prices for users and developers.

Epic Games, the creator of the popular Fortnite video game, is bringing the lawsuit against Google’s Play Store after losing a similar 2021 trial focusing on much of the same concerns in Apple’s iPhone app store.

Although a federal judge ruled in favor of Apple on most points in that trial, the outcome exposed one potential weakness in the digital fortress that Apple has erected around the iPhone.

The judge and an appeals court decided that Apple should allow apps to provide links to other payment sources, which could undercut the 15% to 30% commissions that both Apple and Google get on digital sales made within a mobile app. Apple is appealing that portion of the verdict to the United States Supreme Court, where Epic is also contesting the majority of the case it lost.

The Fortnite creator questions Google’s ability to take a cut of in-app purchases.

Epic is now targeting Google’s commission scheme, even though Android software is already set up to allow alternative shops, such as the one installed on Samsung phones, to distribute programs that run on the operating system. Nonetheless, Epic claims that Google still has a stronghold on the Android app ecosystem and the payment mechanism that goes with it and that it has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to restrict competition.

Google, like Apple, defends its commissions as a way to be compensated for all money invested in its Play Store and claims that the controls over it are a way to protect the security of the tens of millions of people in the United States who download apps for Android-powered phones.

The trial before U.S. District Judge James Donato is set to stretch until just before Christmas and will feature testimony from longtime Google executive Sundar Pichai, now CEO of Alphabet Inc., the company’s parent.

Pichai recently testified in Washington D.C. during an antitrust trial pitting Google’s long-standing dominance of internet search against the US Justice Department’s attempt to undermine it because the business has abused its power to restrict competition and innovation.

The Fortnite creator questions Google’s ability to take a cut of in-app purchases.

In the beginning, Google would have had to defend itself in court against a number of opponents, but in September, it settled claims made against the Play Store by state attorneys general, and just last week, Match Group, the company behind Tinder and other online dating services, settled a case.

The Match settlement caused the company to abandon its original request for a jury trial in favor of a judge-only proceeding, but Donato turned down the offer.

Match is obtaining a $40 million reimbursement for fees paid in an escrow account earlier this year, and the settlement includes Google’s “user choice billing” mechanism. The settlement terms with the state solicitors are expected to be made public during Google’s trial with Epic.

In a social media post, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney called the “user choice billing” option a scam and threatened to sue Google. Sweeney is anticipated to testify as well throughout the trial.

The company’s vice president of government affairs and public policy, Wilson White, accused Epic of trying to gain “something for nothing” in a blog post. After pointing out that Epic had already lost the most important part of its case against Apple, White chastised the game developer for “trying their luck with Android by bringing a case that has even less merit.”