The judge told Google that Apple is not anti-competitive because Apple has no competitors on it's platform (this all stemming from the Epic lawsuits).

Google listened.

Blame the judge for one of the worst legal calls in recent history. Google is a monopoly and Apple is not. Simple fix for Google...

Same comment I made a few days ago, I feel it bears repeating as much as possible until it's really driven home how detrimental and uninformed that decision was.

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andyferris 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Like many things in the US, this should be settled by congress not judges.

Things that everyone relies on for life are generally regulated by law. Telecom platforms for instance. I’d say the mandatory software platform I need for my bank, drivers license, daily communication, etc should be in this bucket.

The EU declaring both Apple and Google gateway platforms is a much better approach. Congress is abdicating its responsibility to craft the legal frameworks for equal access in the modern age.

	▲	thegrim33 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		"Like many things in the US, this should be settled by congress" The US government is by design supposed to be as minimal as possible, and the laws affecting you kept as local as possible. We're not supposed to have a "the government" that's the same as EU governments. "The federal government should make laws" should be an absolute last resort. When you say "congress is abdicating its responsibility", I'd like you to point to where in the constitution it says that congress has such responsibilities.

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pas 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Sorry, which exact ruling are you referring to? How did the court arrived at this finding (that seems irrelevant, false)?

	▲	andyferris 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		There were parallel anti-competitive behavior cases brought against Apple and Google. Apple was deemed not to be anticompetitive in app stores because there was no existing market of app stores on iOS. Google was more open in allowing other app stores, but deemed anticompetitive by discouraging their use relative to the Play store. The irony is the more open player was deemed more anticompetitive. OP is saying Google is “fixing” their anticompetitive behavior by eliminating alternative app stores entirely.
	▲	kodebach 3 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		It is a non-sensical ruling. But IIRC the reason was basically that while Apple and Google did basically the same shit, only Google kept a written record of their monopolistic behaviour, so only Google was found guilty. However, there is a relevant court case here. The one about Samsung's "Auto Blocker" (https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/07/samsung-and-epic-gam...). Epic Games sued because Samsung made it too hard to install apps from "untrusted" sources. This may be a reason why Google is now trying to make the process more difficult on the developer side instead.