Google has been ordered by a judge to allow third-party app stores on Android devices

In December 2023, Epic Games won a massive court battle against Google after a three-year legal fight. The jury in the case ruled that Google not only had a monopoly of control over releasing apps for its Android operating system but that it illegally tried to keep that monopoly in place with anti-competitive practices.

Today, CNBC reports that Judge James Donato has issued a permanent injunction against Google that will force them to allow third-party Android app stores for its mobile operating system.

The ruling goes into effect in November. Under the terms of the injunction, Google won't be able to pay app companies or developers to launch apps either exclusively or first on the Google Play Store for the next three years. Google also cannot pay companies, so they don't compete with the Play Store, and it cannot pay device makers to preinstall Google Play on new devices.

Google will have to allow third-party app stores to be made available on the Google Play Store, and those third-party stores will have to have access to all the apps available on the Play Store as well.

Finally, Google and Epic Games will cooperate to form a three-person committee. This group will review issues that are related to Google's compliance with this new ruling. At the time of this writing, neither Epic nor Google has commented on the judge's ruling.

A version of the Epic Games Store is already available worldwide for Android devices, as well as for iOS products in the European Union. This new ruling could also mean that Microsoft could finally launch a native Android version of its long-delayed gaming mobile store. Microsoft has already announced plans to release a web-based version of a gaming-themed mobile store. However, there's no word yet on when that store will actually launch.

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