The US Federal Trade Commission has urged the California judge overseeing Epic Games' antitrust claim against Google to take strong action to correct the company's anticompetitive management of the Android app market. This follows in August 2020 alleging that Google violated competition laws through its control over the Android platform and the Google Play Store. Three years later, in December 2023, a jury found Google liable.
"For example, network effects and data feedback loops can intensify the harm of conduct that unlawfully deprives rivals of scale, exponentially widening the gulf between firms that can and cannot effectively compete. Accordingly, an effective antitrust remedy may need to go beyond injunctions that target and enjoin specific exclusionary conduct in order to restore competition in digital platform markets.
"o address unlawfully acquired scale or unlawfully erected entry barriers, be it in the context of a single product or across lines of business, a remedy may involve structural relief," the FTC legal team argues.AI chatbots amplify creation of false memories, boffins reckon – or do they?Apple tries again to make EU DMA officials happy – with new fees
The FTC doesn't think much of the objections raised by Google. The commission considers Google's claim that it would be"impossible to administer" free API access to non-customers rather than overblown. It points out that Microsoft, when it was found to have violated antitrust law, was required to make its APIs available.