1,62,260 crores) in revenue last year, or about 12 percent of overall sales.
Google does not break out Play Store's financial performance but has said the unit along with several others together generated $21.7 billion (roughly Rs. The lawsuit said that while Google does enable consumers to avoid the Play Store, it displays "generally misleading warnings and hurdles" to discourage such activity. "Anti-competitive policies stifle innovation, inhibit consumer freedom, inflate costs, and limit transparent communication between developers and their customers," DiMuzio said. The filing drew praise from Meghan DiMuzio, executive director for the Coalition for App Fairness, which represents companies including Match Group and Spotify that oppose some of the Play Store rules. The states said on Wednesday they have not ruled out taking similar action against Apple over its App Store. In addition, the states seek to stop Google's payments to Samsung and developers. They also called for civil penalties and a court-imposed monitor to ensure Google eases the process for consumers, app developers and smartphone makers to use or promote alternatives to the Play Store and the official payment system for 20 years. The states want the consumers to get their money back. "It must stop using its monopolistic power and hyper-dominant market position to unlawfully leverage billions of added dollars from smaller companies, competitors and consumers beyond what should be paid." "Google Play is not fair play," Utah Attorney General Sean Reyes said in a statement. The "extravagant commission," compared with the 3 percent other marketplaces charge, has forced app makers to raise prices and consumers to spend more, the states said. The plaintiffs, which include California and the District of Columbia, also say Google has unlawfully mandated that some apps use the company's payment tools and give Google as much as 30 percent of digital goods sales. Samsung did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The states alleged that Google bought off developers so they would not support competing app stores, and that through numerous secret projects it intended to pay Samsung, whose rival app store posed the biggest threat, to stop competing. The states pointed to agreements already targeted in other lawsuits such as those Google has with mobile carriers and smartphone makers to promote its services.īut they added fresh claims after newly reviewing internal company documents. "Google leverages its monopoly power with Android to unlawfully maintain its monopoly in the Android app distribution market," the lawsuit stated.