Google will pay $700 million and make small changes to the App Store to settle with 50 states

The biggest change: Google will need to allow developers to steer consumers away from the Google Play Store for several years, if this settlement is approved.

You can read the full 68-page settlement for yourself at the bottom of this story, but here’s the TL;DR about what it includes:

Does this seem like a lot? If you add it all up, it creates and changes a slightly different landscape for the Google App Store than we’ve seen over the past decade. But not only does every one of these perks have an expiration date, many of them are arguably not true concessions.

Google argued over epic vs. Google In a previous trial, users were perfectly capable of installing third-party apps on their devices through any number of means, and it claimed that many of its agreements with developers, OEMs, and carriers did not require them to, for example, run Google Play exclusively on the phone or His home screen.

We confirmed with Google spokesperson Dan Jackson this evening that participants in User Choice Billing only receive a discounted rate of 4 percent of Google’s fees when users choose their payment system, and that it will not change as a result of the settlement. Not only has Google found internally that developers stand to lose money when users opt for the 4 percent rate, but Google is also giving companies like Spotify a free ride while apparently charging everyone else.

Perhaps most importantly, Google reserves the right to disallow developers like Netflix from linking to their websites to give their users a discounted price. “Google is not required to allow developers to include links that take the user outside of the application distributed through Google Play to make a purchase,” the settlement agreement states. We’re still waiting to hear if Apple will allow links and/or buttons for alternative payment systems, based on the ruling in epic vs. apple. But the Google/state AGs settlement indicates that regardless, Google will not be required to allow the links.

In a tweet, Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney called the settlement “an injustice to all Android users and developers,” adding that it “upholds Google’s 30% rent monopoly, by replacing the anticompetitive Google Play Billing tie-in with Google’s new anticompetitive user option.” “. Billing hookup that adds a useless 26% Google tax on payments that don’t process. Epic has Official blog post Which basically says the same thing.

According to court filings, the states will ask Judge James Donato to approve the settlement on February 8. This is the same supervising judge epic vs. Googleand both parties will discuss what Epic may have actually won in this case during the second week of January.

In 2022, Google settled a smaller lawsuit with app developers for $90 million.