Google sued by over 30 states over ‘extravagant’ Play Store commission

More than 30 states have filed a lawsuit, accusing Google of being a monopolist and abusing its anti-competitive tactics. The company’s commission on its mobile app store is the main subject of the latest complaint.

The lawsuit was filed on July 7 in federal court in San Francisco, according to Bloomberg. The District of Columbia and 36 states accused Google of destroying competition and making mobile developers use Google Play as the only Android platform to reach the audience.

The company has been called the “gatekeeper of our digital devices,” while its commission of up to 30% has been labeled as “extravagant.” The states also claimed that Google paid Samsung Electronics, which produces most Android devices, to prevent it from creating a new competing app store.

Google, however, disagrees with the accusations mentioned above. In a blog post, the company’s senior director of public policy Wilson White claimed that Google doesn’t “impose the same restrictions as other mobile operating systems do.”

What it means is that the company lets developers distribute their apps through third-party stores or directly through their websites. “This complaint mimics a similarly meritless lawsuit filed by the large app developer Epic Games, which has benefitted from Android’s openness by distributing its Fortnite app outside of Google Play,” White said.

On the other hand, Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes claimed that Google’s monopoly is a “menace to the marketplace.”