Google requested an emergency stay with the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to pause changes it must make to the Play Store following a ruling in its ongoing legal battle with Epic Games.
The search giant has already filed an appeal and requested that Judge James Donato stay the changes, but it seems Google isn’t willing to wait until Friday to find out what Donato rules. The Verge also points out that Donato previously vowed to “tear the barriers down,” so it seems likely he won’t side with Google anyway.
Donato’s original ruling would force Google to open up the Play Store in various ways, including forcing it to distribute third-party app stores (such as the Epic Games Store) and remove requirements that developers use Google Play Billing for apps distributed via Google Play. And those are just two of the many changes Google must make by November 1st.
In its court filing, Google said the court-ordered changes would “expose 100-million-plus U.S. users of Android devices to substantial new security risks” and force changes to Google’s contractual and business relationships with “hundreds of thousands” of partners. The company said that the court gave it just three weeks to complete this “Herculean task” that creates “unacceptable risk of safety and security failures.”
The Verge noted that it received a fact sheet from Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs, echoing some of the arguments the company made in the court filing. In it, Google argued that the changes are a threat to its ability to provide “a safe and trusted user experience” on the Play Store and claims the changes would have “negative consequences for Android users, developers and device manufacturers.”
The fact sheet was split into five sections that focus on risks associated with different parts of the order, including safety risks from third-party app stores, risks of handing over the Play Store app catalogue to third-party stores, the dangers of linking out from an app on Play to an external app download, and more.
Update Oct. 17, 2024 at 1:28pm ET: In a statement to MobileSyrup, Epic Games accused Google of “fear mongering” and said the court’s injunction must come into effect soon. Read the full statement below:
“The jury’s verdict and the court’s injunction were clear: Google’s anticompetitive Play Store practices are illegal. Google is merely fear mongering and falsely using security as a pretext to delay the changes mandated by the court. This is Google’s last ditch effort to protect their control over Android and continue extracting exorbitant fees. The court’s injunction must go into effect swiftly so developers and consumers can benefit from competition in the mobile ecosystem.”
Source: The Verge
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