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Judge Hints at Plans to Rein In Google’s Illegal Play Store Monopoly

“Google as an illegal monopolist will have to pay some penalties,” US federal judge James Donato said Thursday, in a hearing discussing next steps after a jury found the company breached antitrust laws.

The changes could enable Epic to realize its long-held plan to increase revenue by processing in-game purchases in Fortnite and other titles without using Google’s payment system, and marketing games via its own app store. But Google over the past few years already has had to make some costly changes in Europe and Asia due to court losses and new laws affecting the Play store, and a trial with Epic is currently underway in Australia. “Rival app stores [would] have incentives to sign up developers so that they can get revenue streams and so that they're not dead in the water when this provision expires,” Douglas Bernheim, a Stanford University economist testifying on behalf of Epic, told Donato.

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