Physical Address

304 North Cardinal St.
Dorchester Center, MA 02124

Epic Games files its argument to confirm the decision against Google


Epic Games has filed another response to Google’s appeal of its guilty verdict over its inconsistent testing of the way it operates the Google Play Store.

Epic Games, which has been at loggerheads with Google ever since (and Apple) removed Epic’s Fortnite game from the Google Play Store after Epic Games was accused of copyright infringement in 2020.

“This case has been going on for a long time. The trial record is evidence of Google’s decades-long strategy of suppressing competition between app stores and payment systems in the Android ecosystem,” said Epic Games in a legal filing over the weekend. “Google’s internal documents clearly describe” the combination of tactics Google used because it believes that “competing on price … is too easy to become a race to the bottom.”

Epic, accusing Google of destroying evidence in the case, added, “Despite Google’s deliberate destruction of evidence and attempts to cover up what Google’s lawyers called a “false opportunity”, this case revealed several ways in which Google systematically blocked all of its competitors.”

Google has denied violating antitrust laws and is appealing its legal loss in court. A year ago, the judge found Google has broken it anti-trust laws when they cut off Epic Games during litigation.

The result was different from the case against Apple, which Epic lost. In this case against Apple, Epic won on only one point – that software and games should be allowed to advertise their store with low prices within their software on the Apple store.

But in this case, the jury found that Google tied its app store and its payment service together illegally. Most of the charges centered on evidence related to “Project Hug”, where Google paid game developers not to compete with its app store, which the jury considered controversial.

Among other things, Google wanted all Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs, companies that make mobile phones) that make Android smartphones to like its app store (called Google Play) and paid many OEMs to be exclusive, said Epic.

Epic claims that Google required all OEMs to set technical and other barriers (often referred to as “contention”) to prevent users from accessing apps outside of Google Play. Google’s paid app developers block their competitors’ content from Google Play, and pay potential competitors not to launch competing app stores. And since the app stores were broken, Google wanted developers who use Google Play to also use Google’s payment method (called Google Play Billing) for which Google paid a fee, Epic said. As a result, only 3% of Android devices in the United States have successfully installed an app store. Competitors, from small manufacturers to giants like Amazon, have been shut down, Epic says.

On the basis of sufficient evidence of Google’s wrongdoing, after 15 days of trial, all the judges found Google guilty of restraint of trade, control and construction, Epic said.

After the decision, the district court ran the resolution process for many months, with many documents from the parties, including real witnesses and experts. The court also held two hearings, during which it heard from Google’s witnesses and six technical witnesses. The court then issued a decision that reflected the views of both sides, accepting and rejecting some of the arguments of each party. The order was designed to stop Google’s illegal practices and deal with ongoing problems, while allowing Google to compete for those benefits — and it expires in just three years, Epic said.

In the appeal, Google says very little about what it did. Instead, it complains that in a case with a different history related to different practices of another company (Apple), the results were slightly different, said Epic.

Epic says Google’s attack on the district court case is also flawed. When a defendant violates antitrust laws, courts have the discretion to create remedies that will stop the illegal conduct and spare the wrongdoer the negative consequences, Epic said. The district court here exercised discretion, considering the scale and scope of Google’s wrongdoing, weighed down by the seriousness of the action, Epic said.

Google’s contention that the district court “failed to address” the security issue (Br.82) is misplaced. The court said in no uncertain terms that “there are risks to security and technology” with some of the services and allowed Google to “engage in its own security measures”.

Epic said the trial evidence showed, however, that Google had misused security grounds as a reason to impose anti-competitive restrictions, and the jury found that Google’s security grounds were superior and anti-competitive.

Therefore, Epic said that the district court imposed limits on Google’s future requests for “security” as a basis for denying relief (which required Google to ensure that the limits on third-party app stores “were necessary to achieve the safety and security of users and developers) .”) In addition, the district court had a strong record of Google’s security concerns, Epic said.

Epic Games told the appeals court that the district court’s decision should be affirmed. In addition, because Google has no hope of success on the merits, its stay should be dismissed quickly, allowing the law to begin to benefit consumers and manufacturers while the court prepares its full opinion, Epic said.

We’ll see what Google’s reviews say.



Source link

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *