Google desires to place the implications of its Epic antitrust ruling on pause throughout attraction

Google has formally filed a motion [PDF] asking the ninth Circuit Court docket of Appeals to put a pause on the order that forces the corporate to open the Play retailer to rivals. For those who’ll recall, Google lost an antitrust lawsuit filed by Epic Video games after a federal jury discovered that the corporate held an unlawful monopoly on app distribution and in-app billing providers for Android gadgets. Earlier this month, US District Choose James Donato ordered Google to permit third-party app shops entry to the Google Play app catalog and to make these shops downloadable from its storefront. Now, Google is asking the court docket for a keep on that order whereas it is interesting the Epic antitrust lawsuit choice, saying that it’s going to expose 100 million Android customers within the US to “substantial new safety dangers.”

The corporate referred to as the order “dangerous and unwarranted” and mentioned that if it is allowed to face, it is going to threaten Google’s means to “present a secure and trusted used expertise.” It argued that if it makes third-party app shops obtainable for obtain from Google Play, folks would possibly suppose that the corporate is vouching for them, which might increase “actual dangers for [its] customers.” These app shops might have “much less rigorous protections,” Google defined, that would expose customers to dangerous and malicious apps.

It additionally mentioned that giving third-party shops entry to the Play catalog might hurt companies that do not need their merchandise obtainable alongside inappropriate or malicious content material. Giving third-party shops entry to its total library might give “bad-intentioned” shops a “veneer of legitimacy.” Furthermore, it argued that permitting builders to hyperlink out from their apps “creates important threat of misleading hyperlinks,” since unhealthy actors might use the function for phishing assaults to compromise customers’ gadgets and steal their information.

One in every of court docket’s essential proposed modifications is to permit builders to take away Google Play billing as an possibility, permitting them to supply their apps to Android customers with out having to pay the corporate a fee. Nonetheless, Google mentioned that by permitting builders to take away its billing system, it might “drive an possibility that will not have the safeguards and options that customers anticipate.”

In its submitting, Google emphasised that the three weeks the court docket gave it to make these sweeping modifications is just too brief for a “Herculean activity.” It creates an “unacceptable threat of security” that would result in main points affecting the performance of customers’ Android gadgets, it mentioned. The corporate additionally questioned why the court docket sided with Epic in its antitrust lawsuit, whereas it sided with Apple in an analogous case additionally filed by the online game firm. “It’s pause-inducing that Apple, which requires all apps undergo its proprietary App Retailer, shouldn’t be a monopolist, however Google — which constructed alternative into the Android working system so gadget makers can preinstall and customers can obtain competing app shops — was condemned for monopolization.”