Google is locked in a high-stakes legal battle with Epic Games, the creators of Fortnite, and has now turned to the Supreme Court for intervention. The tech behemoth seeks to overturn a lower court ruling that mandates significant changes to its Play app store. These changes, set to take effect on October 22, could force Google to fundamentally alter its business model, potentially allowing other app stores and alternative payment systems on its Android platform.
Google argues that these requirements would cause “irreparable harm” to both its operations and to millions of Android users and thousands of developers. The company officially filed an emergency request with the Supreme Court on Wednesday, a move that could shape the future of digital commerce on smartphones.
This protracted legal saga began in 2018 when Epic Games released Fortnite as a smartphone app. While initially available through various channels, it eventually landed on the Google Play Store. However, Epic soon attempted to bypass Google’s mandatory 30% commission on in-app purchases by embedding secret code within the app, a strategy they internally dubbed “Project Liberty.” Their aim was to challenge what they perceived as restrictive policies regarding app distribution and billing.
Google swiftly responded by removing Fortnite from the Play Store, citing violations of its terms of service. This led Epic Games to launch a lawsuit in 2020, accusing Google of maintaining an illegal monopoly in the smartphone app market and engaging in anti-competitive practices. Epic’s core desire was to retain a larger share of in-app revenue and introduce a rival app store on the Android operating system.
Google is pushing for an expedited decision by October 17 and intends to ask the Supreme Court to hear the full case. The outcome of this litigation could have monumental implications for how businesses operate and generate revenue within Google’s vast smartphone ecosystem. The company emphasized in its filing that the lower court’s order would disrupt its business model, making it considerably easier for developers to avoid compensating Google for its app store services, and would also introduce security vulnerabilities for Android users.
In December 2023, a federal jury in San Francisco found that Google had indeed violated antitrust laws by imposing excessive fees and stifling competition from Epic Games and other developers on its Play mobile app store. Following this verdict, in October 2024, Judge James Donato of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California ordered Google to implement a series of changes. For a period of three years, Google must permit developers to host their own app stores on the Android mobile operating system and allow app creators to utilize their own independent billing systems, circumventing the Android ecosystem entirely.
Google’s attempts to appeal this decision have been unsuccessful. In July, a unanimous three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the jury’s verdict and the lower court’s order. The appeals court concluded that the case presented “replete with evidence that Google’s anticompetitive conduct entrenched its dominance, causing the Play Store to benefit from network effects.” Just recently, on September 12, the appeals court rejected Google’s request for a further review of the panel’s decision, setting the stage for the Supreme Court showdown.