Alphabet has been ordered to open its Android operating system to rivals, allowing them to create their own app marketplaces and payment systems to compete with its dominant Google Play Store, in the latest blow for the search giant that has lost recent antitrust cases.
A federal judge in San Francisco ordered the changes on Monday following a successful lawsuit from Epic, the maker of popular video game Fortnite, which argued Google suppressed competition in Android apps and used its monopoly to charge excessive fees.
US district judge James Donato issued an injunction that bans Google from paying developers to “launch an app first or exclusively” in the Play Store and can no longer force customers to use its in-house billing system, which charges fees of as much as 30 per cent.