{"id":737941,"date":"2026-08-14T16:44:14","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T16:44:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/737941\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T16:44:14","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T16:44:14","slug":"judge-gives-google-one-week-to-fix-anticompetitive-app-store-download-in-google-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/737941\/","title":{"rendered":"Judge gives Google one week to fix “anticompetitive” app store download in Google Play"},"content":{"rendered":"

Google began offering third-party app store downloads<\/a> in the Play Store earlier this week, but US District Judge James Donato says the company isn\u2019t doing enough. After reviewing the process for accessing the first non-Google store, Donato ruled that Google has added unnecessary \u201canticompetitive friction,\u201d ordering the company to rectify the issues.<\/p>\n

While Epic and Google are patching things up with a global partnership agreement, the two are still on opposite sides of the antitrust case in the US. Google lost the case in 2023, and the intervening years have been about determining how to implement remedies to address Google\u2019s anticompetitive behavior. One of the court\u2019s key elements is the requirement that Google include third-party app stores in the Play Store, giving users an easy way to get apps from non-Google sources. Aptoide Games became the first such app store recently.<\/p>\n

However, Google worked hard to avoid this outcome<\/a>, attempting to settle with Epic to keep third-party app stores out. When it was forced to admit the Aptoide store under the terms of the ruling, Google didn\u2019t exactly put up a banner welcoming third-party app stores. In fact, Judge Donato found in a Thursday hearing that Google\u2019s implementation was not good enough, according to The Verge<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While there is a link to the Play Store\u2019s alternative app store page, it\u2019s buried several levels deep in its confusing menus. Epic lawyer Yonatan Even showed the court that even searching for \u201capp store\u201d and \u201captoide\u201d didn\u2019t show the intended results like any other search. Instead, the Play Store shows an \u201care you looking for\u201d banner that links to the third-party app store page.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Google began offering third-party app store downloads in the Play Store earlier this week, but US District Judge…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":656439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[2306,86,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-737941","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mobile","tag-mobile","tag-technology","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737941","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=737941"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737941\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/656439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=737941"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=737941"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=737941"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}