Google is the mastermind and company behind the Google Play Store, Android’s biggest app store, and is under scrutiny for its recent practices regarding app purchasing.
Google has agreed recently to pay out $700 million in order to settle allegations that they’d been pushing competition to their Google App Store. This disclosure was settled a week after a federal court jury rebuked Google for deploying anti competitive tactics in its Play Store for Android apps.
The majority of the $700 million, about $630 million, will be distributed to US consumers who were tricked into using a payment system that increased the prices for digital transactions through the Play Store. Google, like other companies including Apple, collects commissions on in-app purchases, which means this increase in price benefits the company.
This is a widespread issue and those who were affected will be notified about how they could make their claim and gain compensation.
There are a few other conditions that come with this settlement. For example Google will have to make it easier for consumers to download apps from places other than its Play Store for the next 5 years. There will also be an increased flexibility in how consumers can purchase apps and there will be different payment options.
Washington D.C Attorney General, Brian Schwalb, was just one person that was happy about this settlement and he explained why this was a victory, “For far too long, Google’s anticompetitive practices in the distribution of apps deprived Android users of choices and forced them to pay artificially elevated prices,” Schwalb said.
Though this settlement is a step in the right direction, it didn’t solve all of the problems that Google is now facing. For example, Epic Games is still in conflict with Google for an antitrust suit that was filed in August 2020.
With this, many are thinking that the way in which Google runs its app store, and the way they do purchases, may change heavily if they are unable to pay out for their previous lawsuits, such as the one with Epic Games.
