Associated Press Technology Writer Michael Liedtke
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) – The federal court of appeals upheld a ju judge’s ruling accusing Google’s Android App Store of illegal monopoly, clearing the way federal judges implement potentially disruptive reforms designed to provide more options for consumers.
The unanimous decision issued Thursday by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals brings a double, ridiculous legal blow to Google. This has been adopted since late 2023 in three separate antitrust exams, where various pillars of its Internet empire have been declared as dominant monopolies.
The failed charm represents a major victory that launched a legal crusade targeting Google’s Play Store nearly five years ago, targeting APP’s exclusive payment processing system that charged APP’s exclusive payment processing system with 15% to 30% commissions.
In December 2023, ju-search’s responsibilities at Google’s App Store for Android-powered smartphones launched a series of set-ups that included last year’s exclusive decision on the company’s ubiquitous search engine and the technology underlying this year’s digital ad network.
While not as advantageous as Google’s search engine and advertising systems, the Android app play store was a gold mine that generated billions of dollars in annual revenue by reducing in-app transactions by 15% to 30% from funnelled in-app transactions via our own payment processing system.
After a month-long trial, nine ju apprentices determined that Google had equipped its system to prevent alternative app stores from offering better deals to consumers and software developers. The ruling led to the company’s appeal that US District Judge James Donart ordered Google to demolish the digital wall that protects the Play Store from competition, overturning the ju-search findings and negating the judge’s mandated shake-up.
However, a panel of three judges who heard Google’s complaint in February rejected the lawyer’s claim that Donato had made the mistake by allowing cases to be determined by ju-described people who deviated from the market definition outlined by another federal judge, outlined by another federal judge who was mostly seasoned by Apple’s Epic case against the iPhone’s App Store.
The Epic lawsuit was “full of evidence that Google’s anti-competitive conduct had entrenched its advantage and that the Play Store benefited from the network effects,” the judge wrote in the decision.
The ruling “majorly harms users’ safety, limits choices and undermines innovation, which is always at the heart of the Android ecosystem,” said Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs, in a statement.
Unless Google can extend the execution delays posted in Donato’s order issued last October, the company should begin overhauls, which includes allowing the entire library of the Play Store to rivals and helping to distribute alternative options. Google claims that necessary revisions pose a privacy and security risk by exposing consumers to scammers and hackers who disguise themselves as legitimate app stores.
But Epic’s lawyers ridiculed Google’s warning about change as a scary tactic in a desperate attempt to protect the fate of corporate pro-Alphabet Inc.
Epic was missing in the iPhone’s App Store attempt to declare monopoly, but in that case the judge issued an order requesting Apple to exclusively control payment processing for in-app transactions and allowing links to alternative systems without collecting fees.
In addition to colliding with Donato’s orders, Google is facing further troubles, which could leave even bigger dents in its finances.
As part of an effort to address Google’s illegal monopoly in Google’s search, federal judges are weighing the U.S. Department of Justice’s proposal to demand the sale of Chrome web browsers and ban billion-dollar transactions that the company has made, such as Apple, to lock the search engine as the main gateway to the internet.
Google is also facing the proposed dissolution of advertising technology as part of its business’s monopoly measures. The trial on the proposal is scheduled to begin in September.
Original issue: August 1, 2025 9:32am EDT
