SAN FRANCISCO (CN) — A federal judge urged Google to defer its requirement that all Android apps start using Google’s payment system for in-app purchases or face banishment from the Google Play Store.
U.S. District Judge James Donato, who is overseeing sweeping antitrust litigation on claims of a Google monopoly over apps on Android devices, said Google should consider delaying its June 1 deadline until the case goes to trial in April 2023.
"Maybe Google can just not do something for 10 more months contingent on the trial date,” he said. "I'm not asking for forever. Maybe just through trial.”
Google faces lawsuits from a slate of app developers and attorneys general in 36 states and the District of Columbia over its payment policies. Epic Games, the company behind the popular mobile game Fortnite, brought its own lawsuit in 2020, and Match Group, the dating service behind Tinder and Match.com, jumped on the litigation bandwagon just this week.
The lawsuits target Google’s alleged monopoly over app distribution, as well as the 30% commissions it takes from users' in-app purchases.
Developers also complain about Google’s switch from an open eco-system where apps can have their own independent payment systems for digital purchases, to a 2020 “policy change” that requires developers to use Google’s in-house Google Billing System exclusively.
The claims are largely reminiscent of those Epic raised at trial against Apple last year, which ended with U.S. District Judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers declining to rule that Apple violated antitrust laws but ordering it to allow developers to direct app users to payment services outside the App Store.
Lawyers for both sides squared off in a San Francisco courtroom for a status conference Thursday, where Donato said he was disinclined to take up Epic’s motion for a preliminary injunction to prevent Google from enforcing its new policy, preferring that the parties work out a solution among themselves.
The motion, filed April 28, comes just after Epic closed on a deal to acquire Bandcamp, an “online record store and music community” that allows artists to sell music and merchandise directly to fans. Its existence on the Google Play Store now hangs in the balance.
Google attorney Glenn Pomerantz said Bandcamp executives agreed to comply with Google’s new policy prior to being bought by Epic, but communications became “terse” after the deal closed and Bandcamp stopped cooperating.
"Bandcamp was working with us to comply, and now Epic is trying to use its acquisition of Bandcamp as a weapon in this lawsuit,” Pomerantz told the judge. “They never said ‘we're not going to comply' until the middle of April after the Epic acquisition. Bandcamp should do what it said it was going to do — work with us to design and implement.”
“So it's a problem of their own making,” Donato observed.
Donato also questioned the timing of Epic’s injunction motion, as it appeared to coincide with its Bandcamp purchase.
“What concerns me is it seems that Bandcamp knew no later than August 2021 that it had to switch to the Google billing system and they were working on it,” Donato said in response. “It is now eight months later and Bandcamp has new ownership. On that basis alone irreparable harm is hard to maintain. You can't waiver for eight months and come in and say the house is on fire.”
Donato said he didn’t want to handle the matter with an injunction. “The merits of a preliminary injunction motion are so intertwined with the difficult and challenging issues in this case that I’m not going to do a fly-by,” he said. “I'm hoping Google will see its way to not doing anything on June 1."
Attorney Lauren Moskowitz, who represents Epic Games, said, “If Google would agree to withdraw this policy until trial, that's all we're asking."
“I will pass that message along,” Pomerantz said.
Match Group’s attorney Douglas Dixon interjected with “I hope that means Google will continue to approve our app updates.” Dixon said Google began rejecting Match’s app updates on April 20.
Pomerantz did not answer the question directly, but said Google would reach out though he reiterated, “They've known for two years that they need to comply and Bandcamp was wiling to do that for two years,” he said.
Donato said, “See if you can work something out. Each side is going to have to bend. You have to be willow trees, not redwoods.”
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