Google has officially petitioned the Supreme Court, seeking to halt a lower court’s mandate that would compel the company to implement significant alterations to its highly popular Play app store. This urgent request arrives just weeks before the order is slated to take effect.
The tech titan urged the justices to intervene and temporarily pause the trial judge’s order, which is scheduled for October 22. Google argues that these imminent requirements would inflict “irreparable harm,” not only on its own operations but also on millions of Android users and thousands of developers who rely on the platform.
This emergency appeal was filed on Wednesday, a move confirmed by a company spokesperson. The details of the filing, reviewed by The New York Times, have not yet been made public on the Supreme Court’s official docket.
At the heart of this legal skirmish is a years-long conflict with Epic Games, the powerhouse behind the global sensation, Fortnite. In 2018, when Fortnite first launched as a smartphone application, Epic initially distributed it through direct mobile downloads and Samsung’s Galaxy Store. Eventually, it also made the game available on the Google Play Store.
However, Epic Games secretly embedded code within the app to allow players to bypass Google’s mandatory 30 percent commission on in-app purchases. This daring move, which Epic internally dubbed “Project Liberty,” was a direct challenge to what it perceived as Google’s overly restrictive control over app distribution and billing within its ecosystem.
Google swiftly responded by removing Fortnite from the Play Store, citing Epic’s failure to adhere to its terms of service. This led to Epic Games filing a lawsuit in 2020, accusing Google of monopolistic practices and engaging in anticompetitive behavior within the smartphone app store market.
Epic Games, which has yet to comment on the latest development, aimed to retain a larger share of its in-app purchase revenue and introduce its own app store capable of directly competing with Google Play on Android devices.
Google has requested a prompt emergency ruling by October 17, indicating its intention to later ask the Supreme Court to take on the case for full review. The outcome of this high-stakes litigation could fundamentally redefine the economic landscape for businesses operating on Google’s smartphone operating system.
In its submission to the justices, Google emphasized the urgency, contending that the trial court’s order would severely undermine its business model by making it “substantially easier for developers to avoid compensating Google” for the essential services provided by the app store.
Furthermore, Google raised concerns that the changes mandated by the lower court could also introduce new security vulnerabilities for Android users.
The legal saga intensified in December 2023 when a federal jury in San Francisco determined that Google had, in fact, violated antitrust laws. The jury concluded that Google unlawfully extracted fees and suppressed competition from Epic Games and other developers within its mobile app store ecosystem.
Subsequently, in October 2024, Judge James Donato of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California issued a groundbreaking order. This ruling compelled Google, for a period of three years, to permit developers to host their own app stores on the Android mobile operating system. Additionally, the judge mandated that Google allow app creators to process user payments through their own independent billing systems, circumventing the Android ecosystem.
This past July, a unanimous three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed the jury’s verdict and upheld the lower court’s order. The panel concluded that the case was “replete with evidence that Google’s anticompetitive conduct entrenched its dominance, causing the Play Store to benefit from network effects.”
As of September 12, the appeals court had rejected Google’s petition for a broader review of the panel’s decision, pushing the tech giant to its current appeal to the nation’s highest court.