Epic Games Officially Defeats Google in Antimonopoly Trial

Epic Games beat Google at the antitrust trial (photo: Doc. Epic Games)

JAKARTA – After battling Google for three years, Epic Games has finally reached the pinnacle of victory. The reason is, the jury has decided that Google is indeed carrying out an illegal monopoly in the Google Play Store.

Quoted from The Verge, the jury's decision in this trial was unanimous. They realize that Google does have the power to monopolize the application distribution market. Moreover, Play Store is one of the widely used app stores on smartphones.

During the trial, the evidence brought by Epic Games has shown that Google does not want to experience market competition. Therefore, Google forcibly removed the Fortnite game from the Play Store when Fortnite used a third-party payment system.

Another piece of evidence against Google is its exclusive collaboration with several parties. Google is considered to have illegal ties with several companies because the distribution of commissions is not in accordance with Google's original rules.

One of the most highlighted applications is Spotify. The application is given permission not to provide commissions even though it uses its own payments. The commission that Google receives is only four percent, even though Google sets 15 percent for other companies.

Even though the jury has sided with Epic, Judge James Donato has not yet decided on the form of compensation that Google must pay. These two large companies will meet again with Donato in the second week of January.

For your information, Epic first filed a lawsuit in 2020 after the Fortnite game was forcibly removed by Google from the Play Store. This takedown occurred because Epic used a third-party payment system.

Initially, Epic moved forward with Spotify. However, the music streaming platform withdrew the lawsuit suddenly after striking a deal with Google. The deal between Spotify and Google was only revealed in court last month.