Google Antitrust Trial Focused on Android App Store Payments to Be Handed Off to Jury to Decide

(FILES) This illustration photograph taken on October 30, 2023 in Mulhouse, eastern France, shows figurines next to a screen displaying a logo of Google, a US multinational technology company. (Photo by SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP)
(FILES) This illustration photograph taken on October 30, 2023 in Mulhouse, eastern France, shows figurines next to a screen displaying a logo of Google, a US multinational technology company. (Photo by SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP)
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Google Antitrust Trial Focused on Android App Store Payments to Be Handed Off to Jury to Decide

(FILES) This illustration photograph taken on October 30, 2023 in Mulhouse, eastern France, shows figurines next to a screen displaying a logo of Google, a US multinational technology company. (Photo by SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP)
(FILES) This illustration photograph taken on October 30, 2023 in Mulhouse, eastern France, shows figurines next to a screen displaying a logo of Google, a US multinational technology company. (Photo by SEBASTIEN BOZON / AFP)

A federal court jury is poised to begin its deliberations in an antitrust trial focused on whether Google's efforts to profit from its app store for Android smartphones have been illegally gouging consumers and stifling innovation.
Before the nine-person jury in San Francisco starts weighing the evidence Monday, the lawyers on the opposing sides of the trial will present their closing arguments in a three-year-old case filed by Epic Games, the maker of the popular Fortnite video game, The Associated Press said.
The four-week trial included testimony from both Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who sometimes seemed like a professor explaining complex topics while standing behind a lectern because of a health issue, and Epic CEO Tim Sweeney, who painted himself as a video game lover on a mission to take down a greedy tech titan.
Epic alleged that Google has been exploiting its wealth and control of the Android software that powers most of the world's smartphones to protect a lucrative payment system within its Play Store for distributing Android apps. Just as Apple does for its iPhone app store, Google collects a 15-30% commission from digital transactions completed within apps — a setup that generates billions of dollars annually in profit.
Google has staunchly defended the commissions as a way to help recoup the huge investments it has poured into building into the Android software that it has been giving away since 2007 to manufacturers to compete against the iPhone and pointed to rival Android app stores such as the one that Samsung installs on its popular smartphones as evidence of a free market.
Epic, though, presented evidence asserting the notion that Google welcomes competition as a pretense, citing the hundreds of billions of dollars it has doled out to companies such as game maker Activision Blizzard to discourage them from opening rival app stores.
The jury's verdict in the case will likely hinge on how the smartphone app market is defined. While Epic has been contending Google's Play Store is a de facto monopoly that drives up prices for consumers and discourages app makers from creating new products, Google drew a picture of a broad and fiercely competitive market that includes Apple's iPhone app store in addition to the Android alternatives to its Play Store.
Google's insistence that it competes against Apple in the distribution of apps despite the company's reliance on incompatible mobile operating systems cast a spotlight on the two companies' cozy relationship in online search — the subject of another major antitrust trial in Washington that will be decided by a federal judge after hearing final arguments in May.
The Washington trial centers on US Justice Department allegations that Google has been abusing its dominance of the online search market, partly by paying billions of dollars to be the automatic place to field queries placed on personal computers and mobile devices, including the iPhone.
Evidence presented in both the San Francisco and Washington revealed Google paid $26.3 billion in 2021 for its search to be the default choice on a variety of web browsers and smartphones, with the bulk of the money going to Apple. Without providing a precise dollar amount, Pichai confirmed Google shared 36% of its revenue from searches in the Safari browser with Apple in 2021.
Epic's lawsuit against Google's Android app store mirror another case that the video game maker brought against Apple and its iPhone app store. The Apple lawsuit resulted in a monthlong trial in 2021 amid the pandemic, with Epic losing on all its key claims.
But the Apple trial was decided by a federal judge as opposed to a jury that will hand down the verdict in the Google case.



US Defends Law Forcing Sale of TikTok App

This photograph taken in Mulhouse, eastern France on October 19, 2023, shows the logo of the social media video sharing app TikTok reflected in mirrors. (AFP)
This photograph taken in Mulhouse, eastern France on October 19, 2023, shows the logo of the social media video sharing app TikTok reflected in mirrors. (AFP)
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US Defends Law Forcing Sale of TikTok App

This photograph taken in Mulhouse, eastern France on October 19, 2023, shows the logo of the social media video sharing app TikTok reflected in mirrors. (AFP)
This photograph taken in Mulhouse, eastern France on October 19, 2023, shows the logo of the social media video sharing app TikTok reflected in mirrors. (AFP)

The Justice Department late Friday filed its response to TikTok's civil suit aimed at derailing a law that would force the app to be sold or face a US ban.

TikTok's suit in a Washington federal court argues that the law violates First Amendment rights of free speech.

The US response counters that the law addresses national security concerns, not speech, and that TikTok's Chinese parent company ByteDance is not able to claim First Amendment rights here.

The filing details concerns that ByteDance could, and would, comply with Chinese government demands for data about US users or yield to pressure to censor or promote content on the platform, senior justice department officials said in a briefing.

"The goal of this law is to ensure that young people, old people and everyone in between is able to use the platform in a safe manner," a senior justice department official said.

"And to use it in a way confident that their data is not ultimately going back to the Chinese government and what they're watching is not being directed by or censored by the Chinese government."

The response argues that the law's focus on foreign ownership of TikTok takes it out of the realm of the First Amendment.

US intelligence agencies are concerned that China can "weaponize" mobile apps, justice department officials said.

"It's clear that the Chinese government has for years been pursuing large, structured datasets of Americans through all sorts of manner, including malicious cyber activity; including efforts to buy that data from data brokers and others, and including efforts to build sophisticated AI models that can utilize that data," a senior justice department official said.

TikTok has said the demanded divestiture is "simply not possible" -- and not on the timeline required.

The bill signed by President Joe Biden early this year set a mid-January 2025 deadline for TikTok to find a non-Chinese buyer or face a US ban.

The White House can extend the deadline by 90 days.

"For the first time in history, Congress has enacted a law that subjects a single, named speech platform to a permanent, nationwide ban, and bars every American from participating in a unique online community with more than one billion people worldwide," said the suit by TikTok and ByteDance.

- TikTok shutdown? -

ByteDance has said it has no plans to sell TikTok, leaving the lawsuit, which will likely go to the US Supreme Court, as its only option to avoid a ban.

"There is no question: the Act will force a shutdown of TikTok by January 19, 2025," the lawsuit said, "silencing (those) who use the platform to communicate in ways that cannot be replicated elsewhere."

TikTok first found itself in the crosshairs of former president Donald Trump's administration, which tried unsuccessfully to ban it.

That effort got bogged down in the courts when a federal judge temporarily blocked Trump's attempt, saying the reasons for banning the app were likely overstated and that free speech rights were in jeopardy.

The new effort signed by Biden was designed to overcome the same legal headaches, and some experts believe the US Supreme Court could be open to allowing national security considerations to outweigh free speech protection.

"We view the statute as a game changer from the arguments that were in play back in 2020," a senior justice department official said.

There are serious doubts that any buyer could emerge to purchase TikTok even if ByteDance would agree to the request.

Big tech's usual suspects, such as Facebook parent Meta or YouTube's Google, will likely be barred from snapping up TikTok over antitrust concerns, and others could not afford one of the world's most successful apps used by about 170 million people in the United States alone.