After Apple, it is now Google’s turn to take on Epic Games in court. The developer of the very popular video game Fortnite accuses the two technology companies of having an illegal monopoly on the market for mobile applications.
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More than three years after Epic Games’ lawsuit, the trial opened on Monday in San Francisco, while Google has been defending itself in Washington for a month and a half as part of a groundbreaking antitrust case against the US Department of Justice.
Epic criticizes Apple and Google, which dominate the global mobile economy, for requiring application developers to use their download platforms (Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store) and payment systems and paying them excessive commissions (30%).
“When Google was founded in 1998, it was a fascinating young company with a single motto: ‘Don’t Be Evil,'” Epic’s lawyers said in filing the lawsuit in 2020. “Twenty-two years later, Google has pushed its company away The currency slides into second place, exploiting its size to harm its competitors, innovators, customers and users in a variety of markets that it claims it wants to “monopolize.”
In Washington, prosecutors are using similar arguments. They accuse the Californian company of having built its empire not through its popularity, but through illegal exclusive contracts with companies like Apple and Samsung, so that its search engine is installed by default on their devices and services.
The trial between Apple and Epic took place in 2021. Two years ago, a US federal judge ordered Apple to allow an alternative payment system in the App Store, but also ruled that Epic would not fail to prove that Apple had violated competition law.
Apple and Google regularly argue that the commissions are standard in the industry and, in particular, ensure the security of the payment system.
Unlike the iPhone manufacturer, Google allows alternative stores. However, the publisher of Fortnite has set out to prove that this is an illusion and that the Android mobile operating system is hardly more open than iOS.
Epic Games accuses its opponent of having concluded contracts with various companies in order to secure the application distribution market.
“Google established contractual barriers to competition (…) recognizing that the group risked losing billions of dollars if the distribution of Android apps were ever opened up to competition and that there were competing stores, including an “Epic Store” , managed to “gain ground.” “, asserts the studio in its revised complaint dated August 2021.