
A California jury did not have much time for Google this week. After a four-week trial, it took less than four hours to decide that the company had broken antitrust laws to make billions from its Google Play app store. “I just think they need a refresher on integrity a little bit there,” one juror later reflected.
The verdict in the federal trial is a nasty setback for what have become moneymaking machines. When Apple launched the first app store for the iPhone 15 years ago, it created a new kind of retail outlet for software, not only virtual but much more profitable than a supermarket. Courts and antitrust regulators are discovering how rewarding that innovation is.