Judge Gives Google One Week to Stop Sabotaging Rival App Store Installs

Google lost the Epic Games antitrust case back in 2023. A jury found the company ran an illegal monopoly over Android app distribution. Since then, the fight has been about actually forcing Google to open things up. This week showed exactly why that fight isn't over.

US District Judge James Donato held a compliance hearing in San Francisco on Thursday, August 13. Google had just started letting a third-party app store, Aptoide Games, into the Play Store days earlier, part of the remedy Donato ordered to break Google's grip. Epic argued Google's implementation was designed to fail. Donato agreed.

Epic's lawyer, Yonatan Even, ran a live demo for the court. He searched the Play Store for "store for apps." No app stores showed up. Walmart did.

"Wait, why did Walmart come up?" Donato asked, according to The Verge. "That's not good."

Even then searched directly for "app store" and for "Aptoide" by name. Still no normal search results. Instead, the Play Store surfaced a click-through banner asking users if they were "looking for" a third-party app store page, rather than just showing it. Donato compared it to typing "music store" and never getting told about music stores.

Then there's the install button. Or rather, the lack of one. When a user finally reaches the Aptoide listing, there's no direct "Install" option like you'd get with any normal app. Instead there's a "View" button that opens yet another dialog before installation actually starts.

Donato didn't buy Google's explanation. Google's lawyers argued that app stores deserve a special category because they require expanded device permissions, so the extra step was justified. Android Authority reported the court rejected that reasoning outright, treating it as a security justification being used to preserve market dominance instead.

"That is not acceptable," Donato said from the bench. "That has to be fixed. I want every possible variation that's even only 70 percent properly phrased."

On the install button, Donato was blunt: "You don't get that when you're looking at Apple Music." His order: change "View" to "Install." Google's counsel agreed on the spot.

Google's defense deserves a fair hearing here. The company has spent years arguing that friction around installing outside app stores protects ordinary users from scams and malware, and that's not a crazy position. Sideloading has been possible on Android for over a decade, and warning screens exist because plenty of non-technical users have been burned by shady APKs. Security warnings aren't inherently anticompetitive.

The problem, as Donato saw it, is the specific design choices in this case go well beyond a security warning. Burying a legitimate, court-approved storefront under a banner that doesn't even trigger from a direct name search isn't a safety measure. Neither is swapping a standard one-tap install button for an extra confirmation screen that no other app on the Play Store has to clear. Epic argued this pattern would also discourage bigger companies, like Amazon, from ever launching a competing storefront, since they'd lose visibility in normal search results. Donato's ruling addressed that specific concern too.

This is the second time Google has had to be dragged toward compliance. The company spent years fighting the underlying ruling and reportedly tried to settle privately with Epic to avoid opening the Play Store at all, according to Ars Technica. When that didn't work, Google and Epic instead struck a separate global partnership agreement while continuing to fight over remedies in the US case. This split-track approach has led to an odd situation: allies in one deal, adversaries in the courtroom on the same day.

Google now has seven days to roll out the fixes: real search results for app-store queries, no more "are you looking for" detour banners, and a straightforward Install button instead of View. Donato told Google's lawyers to contact him directly if the timeline becomes a problem, which suggests he's not expecting excuses.

Aptoide remains the only third-party store live in the Play Store. Whether Epic finally launches its own storefront under the improved rules, and whether bigger players like Amazon decide the friction is low enough to bother, will show whether Donato's fix actually works or whether Google finds a new bottleneck to argue about at the next hearing.