Google targeted with antitrust lawsuit for hefty fee on App Store downloads

Tech giant Google is being sued by a grouping of 36 US states and Washington DC in an attempt to counter the company’s alleged monopolistic control over the App Store of devices that use and are supported by Android software, serving another antitrust blow. 

The lawsuit was filed in a federal court in the state of California, which also hosts a variety of such tech-based companies in California’s San Francisco. The suit has been filed by states like New York, Iowa, Nebraska, North Carolina, Tennessee, Utah, Arizona and Colorado amongst many others, according to reports from Politico.

The new lawsuit against google is to challenge its policy that compels application and software developers to pay a hefty commission of 30% of the total sales of their goods and services sold through its play store. The lawsuit comes just months before Google’s new policy is implemented. 

Multiple other such cases have been filed and registered against the tech-giant that claim its policies have been harsh on the revenue of the developers and allege that a major chunk of it is bitten off due to its high-priced rules. Epic Games, the company which developed the highly celebrated battle royale game Fortnite, laid out a similar antitrust class action on Google in August 2020.

The policy has also been highly opposed by companies like Netflix, Spotify and Match Group, which heavily rely on their customers on downloading platforms such as Google Play Store. Due to this, Google previously announced it would retract some of its proposed policies and will shrink the commission rates by half for the first $1 million in sales.

In response to such opposing views, Google officials at a meeting held with the US Senate’s tech committee, said that the commission rates being proposed are in congruence with the charges imposed by other players in the industry, according to reports from Politico. 

Google, to those who oppose the new policy,  suggested the sideloading route, where a user can download applications from other stores or from sources offered by the developers themselves.