Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

Google has been in court in Washington for two months against Bo, who accused the company of abusing its dominant position in online search and advertising to suppress competitors. The major antitrust case has attracted a lot of attention and could reshape the world's most popular search engine. Now Google faces another legal battle closer to its headquarters.

Epic Games, the developer of the popular game Fortnite, will appear in federal court in San Francisco on Monday to begin a month-long antitrust lawsuit against Google. Epic Games is expected to accuse Google of violating state and federal antitrust laws and its founding principle of "do no evil" on the grounds that it exercises a monopoly over app developers in the Google App Store on Android phones.

"Google has reduced its motto to an almost hindsight and is using its size to do bad things to competitors, innovators, customers and users in a range of markets it already monopolizes," Epic Games wrote in its first lawsuit in 2020. The video game developer tried to bypass the commission charged by the Google App Store by making "Fortnite" players pay Epic Games directly for props in the app, prompting Google to ban the game from its app store.

If Epic Games wins, Google could be forced to change its app store rules to allow other companies to offer competing app stores, making it easier for developers to prevent Google from taking a share of in-app purchases. Google typically charges users a 15% subscription fee for apps and a 30% commission for apps downloaded from the app store. Google had previously argued that 99 per cent of developers were eligible for in-app purchase rates of 15 per cent or less, while large app developers such as Epic Games had to pay 30 per cent.

The antitrust lawsuit highlights how Google is defending itself on multiple fronts as regulators and competitors try to weaken its influence on the internet.

The lawsuits are likely to distract Google as part of a broader effort by technology regulators in recent years to curb the growing power of technology giants as it tries to focus on competing with Microsoft, OpenAI and others in the emerging field of generative artificial intelligence.

"it's hard to imagine Google getting out of the challenge unscathed next year," said Paul Swanson Swardson, an antitrust lawyer at law firm Holland & Hart. "at some point, getting caught up in so many cases will be against you."

Even so, Epic Games still faces an uphill battle. The company filed similar charges against Apple in a 2021 trial. However, a federal judge rejected most of Epic Games's requests.

The difference in this trial is that Epic Games thinks he has a chance to succeed. First of all, the case will be decided by a jury rather than a judge. Epic Games will also submit what it believes is conclusive evidence that Google has forced handset makers such as Samsung to pre-install and promote their applications on their devices. The company will argue that Google's "Project Hug" project bribed some developers to continue to use Google's payment system. Epic Games has also been countersued by Google, which is seeking damages.

Swardson said a jury trial could be good for Epic Games. "Google is much more at risk because they are dealing with a group of ordinary people who evaluate their behaviour, rather than judges who evaluate their behaviour through a century of antitrust precedents," he explained. "

Over time, antitrust charges against the Google App Store have been reduced to an one-on-one confrontation between Google and Epic Games. In 2021, dozens of state attorneys general sued Google on similar grounds, and the company reached a preliminary settlement with those states in September. On Tuesday, Google also announced a settlement with dating app company Match Group. Match Group has previously joined Epic Games's lawsuit.

"Epic Games wants to get all the benefits offered by Android and the Google App Store without paying," Wilson White, Google's vice president of public policy, said at a news conference. "this lawsuit will upend a business model that lowers prices and increases choices."

In 2020, Epic Games infuriated Google and Apple by encouraging its customers to avoid the tech giants and pay the company directly for the purchase of props in the popular game Fortnite. This violated the rules of the two companies, so they removed "Fortnite" from the app store.

Epic Games responded with lawsuits and PR blitzkrieg against Apple. Fortnite can still be used on Android phones because Google allows a practice called side loading, which downloads apps from the Internet outside the mobile app store.

Epic Games may argue that Google has made life difficult for both Android phone users and app developers in a variety of ways. Downloading is a difficult process, and it is difficult for most mobile phone users to adapt, which means that Google can maintain de facto control of applications on mobile phones through the restrictions of the app store. Samsung also offers an app store on its Android devices.

Sandal Sundar Pichai, chief executive of Google, and Tim Sweeney, chief executive of Epic Games, are both expected to testify.

Last week, Pichai testified in an antitrust lawsuit against Google by the Justice Department. The Justice Department and attorneys general from dozens of states have accused Google of paying billions of dollars a year to Apple, Samsung and other partners to make its search engine the default choice for their web browsers, thereby undermining competition.

Google argues that it got the default position because it has better products and its competitors do not invest in search.

In addition to Pichai's appearance, the case includes testimony from Google employees and rival executives, including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. The case is likely to be decided in 2024.

A federal judge in Virginia is considering another Justice Department lawsuit accusing Google of illegally abusing its monopoly on online advertising technology. The trial in this case will begin as early as next year.

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