Google: The Deals Behind Google Play’s Dominance

The Epic Google antitrust ruling upheld a jury verdict against Google for restricting rival app stores and tying Play distribution to Google Play Billing. The court also upheld an order opening those markets to competition. The case reached inside the business arrangements that kept developers and users on Google Play: payments to game developers, deals for the home screen and download warnings that discouraged people from going elsewhere. For someone working in device partnerships, developer relations or payments, those are familiar business decisions. Here, they became the evidence of how Google protected its monopoly.

The Ninth Circuit issued its opinion on July 31, 2025. Epic Games, the developer of Fortnite, brought the private antitrust case. Developers faced required billing fees, users faced restricted choices and rival stores struggled to reach either group.

How Google Play Became the Gate Between Users and Developers

Google Play’s strength came from connecting a large audience with a large catalog. Developers wanted the users already on Play. Users wanted the apps already there. A competing store had to attract both.

Android gave that contest a particular shape. Google licensed the operating system to phone manufacturers such as Samsung and Motorola, which could also offer stores of their own. An Android developer could distribute through Google Play, another Android store or its own website. Those choices made device placement, developer agreements and the steps required to install software commercially important.

The court quoted Google’s internal presentations explaining why developers kept coming back:

The same presentations recognized that even Amazon would struggle to break those network effects. A rival could build a store and still lack what made people open it.

By 2020, Google Play accounted for 95% of Android app downloads in the United States and more than 80% worldwide outside China, according to the court.

Sideloading Came With Obstacles

Sideloading allowed Android users to get an app directly from a developer’s website, but Google’s settings and warnings discouraged them from finishing. According to the court’s account of the download process, Android disabled direct downloads by default. Users who changed that setting could then face as many as 14 warning screens.

The warnings said the source was unknown, the software could harm the device and the user would bear responsibility for damage. Yet the court explained that the screens did not reflect an assessment of the particular source’s security. A trusted developer’s website received the same treatment as an untrustworthy one.

Fortnite made the effect measurable. Users had to navigate more than 15 steps to complete a direct download, and Epic found that 35% of those who started abandoned the process after encountering Google’s warnings. The developer had already persuaded someone to seek out the game. The installation process put another obstacle between that person and the download.

The Deals That Kept Rivals Off the Phone

Google reinforced Play’s position through agreements with device makers and game developers. The court described arrangements that shaped both which store appeared on a phone and which games a competing store could offer.

The Home Screen Was Part of the Deal

Google’s Mobile Application Distribution Agreement effectively required Android phone makers to preinstall Play on the default home screen. Revenue-sharing agreements with a preferred group of manufacturers went further, making Play the only preinstalled app store on their phones.

Project Banyan targeted Samsung, which combined a phone business with a competing app store. Google’s proposal would have compensated Samsung to reduce the Galaxy Store’s app-distribution share and steer traffic toward Play. A competing store would become a source of customers for Google.

Project Hug Paid Developers to Stay

Project Hug offered cash and other benefits to 22 top game developers, including Activision, the maker of Call of Duty, under agreements not to launch on another Android app store. Google developed the program after Epic said it would launch Android Fortnite outside Play.

Google feared that Fortnite could legitimize another store and create what it called “contagion,” prompting other developers to follow. Losing one game meant more than losing that game’s commission. A successful launch elsewhere could give other developers a reason to try the same route.

Paying prominent developers to stay addressed that threat at its source. The benefits went to companies whose games could help make a competing store worth visiting. For someone negotiating developer incentives, the important business term was what the payment required the developer to give up.

Why Fortnite’s Billing Fight Became an Antitrust Case

Fortnite’s billing dispute exposed the connection between app distribution and payment processing. The game was free to download and earned revenue from purchases of in-game features. Once a developer distributed through Play, Google’s Developer Distribution Agreement required Google Play Billing for in-app purchases and a commission on nearly all those transactions.

Epic initially tried to reach Android users through direct downloads and Samsung’s store. It eventually brought Fortnite to Play in 2020. Epic then embedded code that let in-app purchases bypass the required payment system and its 30% commission, calling the effort Project Liberty. Google removed Fortnite for violating its terms, and Epic sued.

On December 11, 2023, the jury found that Google unlawfully acquired or maintained monopoly power, restricted competition and tied Play distribution to Google Play Billing. It found violations of federal and California antitrust law in Android app distribution and Android in-app billing services, with a geographic market covering the world outside China.

The money explains the importance of the tie. The court reported a 71% operating profit for Play in 2021. It also noted that Google introduced limited programs reducing its commission to 15% after Epic sued. A lower fee in some circumstances still left Google controlling the route to the customer and the required billing service.

Why the Apple Case Came Out Differently

Epic lost its federal antitrust claims against Apple, while securing a California unfair-competition order against restrictions that kept users from paying outside Apple’s system. The Google case involved different markets and different conduct.

Apple tied its operating system to its own phones and did not license it to other device manufacturers. At the time of the Apple trial, competing app stores did not operate on iOS. Google’s agreements over another manufacturer’s home screen therefore had no counterpart in that case.

Android had competing stores. The evidence concerned Google’s efforts to limit their placement, keep developers from launching on them and discourage direct downloads. Those were concrete ways of restricting alternatives that already existed.

The court also explained why competition between Apple and Google for mobile gaming business did not answer the Android question. Inside Android app distribution and billing, Google’s rivals included Samsung and Amazon. An app built for Android could not simply be installed on an iPhone. The relevant competition depended on the product and the customers the business could actually reach.

Epic Google Jury Verdict and Appellate Injunction

The Epic Google jury verdict and appellate injunction addressed both Google’s restrictive deals and the advantages those deals had built. The district court entered a nationwide, three-year injunction on October 7, 2024.

Developer Deals and Billing Choices

The order barred Google from sharing Play revenue with actual or prospective competitors in Android app distribution. It also prohibited deals conditioning payment or Play access on launching an app first or exclusively on Play, or on giving Play exclusive preinstallation in a particular location on an Android phone.

The billing provisions prohibited Google from requiring every app distributed through Play to use Google Play Billing. The order also required Google to let developers give users information about, and access to, alternative billing, pricing and distribution channels. These provisions reached what developers could tell customers as well as how customers could pay.

Rival Stores Needed Both Apps and Users

Catalog access required Google to let third-party Android stores offer apps from Play’s catalog. The companion distribution provision required Google to allow competing stores themselves to be distributed through Play.

The court explained why both mattered. Catalog access gave a rival something to offer. Distribution through Play gave it a way to reach people accustomed to getting their software there. Stopping the restrictive deals alone would have left competitors facing the network effects those deals had strengthened.

Security Measures Had to Answer to the Court

The injunction allowed reasonable security and privacy measures and reasonable fees based on Google’s actual costs. Security checks for rival stores had to be comparable to the measures Google used for apps proposed for listing on Play.

The court also ordered a Technical Committee to address implementation disputes. In a disagreement, Google had to show that its technical requirements were strictly necessary for user and developer safety and security.

For people working on catalog systems, store review or installation design, those terms made implementation part of the competition remedy. Access depended on the rules built into the product as well as the words removed from a contract.

When New Information Also Involves Government Claims

Our whistleblower experts connect what you know about the business to the right case and potential reward. This private verdict does not establish a government recovery or a whistleblower award. A whistleblower case under the False Claims Act can pay 15% to 30% of what the government recovers. This requires a separate false claim for government payment.

You Know What the Agreement Required

Our whistleblower experts can connect a Google Play distribution or billing agreement with the developer, device maker or user choice it restricted.