The US Federal Trade Commission has urged the California judge overseeing Epic Games' antitrust claim against Google to take strong action to correct the company's anticompetitive management of the Android app market. This follows a recent ruling by another federal judge that the tech giant violated US antitrust laws with its search business.

Epic Games initially sued Google [PDF] in August 2020 alleging that Google violated competition laws through its control over the Android platform and the Google Play Store. Three years later, in December 2023, a jury found Google liable.

The gaming giant at the time characterized the decision as a win for app developers. "It proves that Google’s app store practices are illegal and they abuse their monopoly to extract exorbitant fees, stifle competition and reduce innovation," the company said.

The question now is what remedy will be imposed on Google. In an amicus brief [PDF] filed on Thursday and in a statement, FTC attorneys offered some guidance to Judge James Donato.

"When a dominant digital platform engages in antitrust violations, the harm can be cumulative due to the advantages conferred by network effects and data feedback loops," the brief says.

"For example, network effects and data feedback loops can intensify the harm of conduct that unlawfully deprives rivals of scale, exponentially widening the gulf between firms that can and cannot effectively compete. Accordingly, an effective antitrust remedy may need to go beyond injunctions that target and enjoin specific exclusionary conduct in order to restore competition in digital platform markets."

Thus, the watchdog's lawyers argue, an effective remedy may require that potential competitors "can overcome the lock-in advantages of network effects and data incumbency."

Corrective action could include, for example, Google making its platform interoperable with other platforms or data interoperability requirements to address platform lock-in. It might even include forcing Google to part with some of its Android business.

"[T]o address unlawfully acquired scale or unlawfully erected entry barriers, be it in the context of a single product or across lines of business, a remedy may involve structural relief," the FTC legal team argues.

Remedies being considered presently include: giving third-party app stores access to Google Play's app catalog; providing "library porting" of users’ Play-installed apps, so they would be administered thereafter by a third-party app store rather than Google Play; and distributing third-party app stores through the Google Play store.

Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Google in a court filing [PDF] in June outlined the cost of compliance and pushed back against the proposal. "[T]hese proposed remedies would require a dramatic redesign of the Play store and Android that would harm Android users and developers, the trust and safety of the Play store, and the Android ecosystem and require Google to become a forced dealer for its competitors," the Android biz said.

Catalog access was estimated to take 12-16 months to implement at a cost of $27.5 million to $66.9 million to develop, build, and maintain for the duration of the injunction; library porting might take a year and cost $1.7 million to $2.4 million; and distribution of third-party app stores might take 12-16 months to implement at a cost of $32.1 million to $67.7 million, alongside other redacted costs.

The FTC doesn't think much of the objections raised by Google. The commission considers Google's claim that it would be "impossible to administer" free API access to non-customers rather than overblown. It points out that Microsoft, when it was found to have violated antitrust law, was required to make its APIs available.

The watchdog also scoffs at Google's fretting about the cost of compliance. "Where an adjudicated antitrust violator has the ability to comply with a remedy that is necessary to restore competition, complaints about the burdens of compliance are no excuse," agency attorneys argue.

To do otherwise, they say, would thwart the intent of antitrust laws and allow monopolists to profit while avoiding the cost of restoring competition.

Asked whether the remedies being sought to address Google's oversight of Android might apply to Apple and its iOS ecosystem, an FTC spokesperson declined to comment. ®

https://www.theregister.com//2024/08/13/ftc_google_android_monopoly/