Judge Orders Google To Make Rival App Store Installs Easier

A federal judge has ordered Google to remove what he called "anticompetitive friction" that makes rival Android app stores harder to find and install. The order is part of the remedies stemming from Epic's antitrust victory, which already requires Google to carry competing app stores inside Google Play and give them access to its app catalog. The Verge reports: It's been nearly three years since a jury unanimously decided that Google had an illegal monopoly over Android apps, and almost two years since Judge James Donato decided the best way of undoing that monopoly would be to crack open Android app distribution. Donato ordered Google to carry rival Android app stores inside its own Google Play Store, and to provide rivals with complete access to Google's full catalog of apps, for several years.

But Epic argued that Google is still making it too difficult to install rival app stores, showing the entire courtroom a live demo of how many steps it currently takes -- and Judge Donato agreed that some of those steps were unnecessary "anticompetitive friction" and ordered Google to remove them. [...] The judge wants these changes fast. "Have it done by a week from today," he told Google. "If there's some problem with that, let me know."

Re:

[geekmux]

Google should have simply allowed every developer to create an app store because the sooner one of them is malicious, the better.

Not sure why this was modded down here. This statement was made factually true once Google even allowed one 3rd party app store to exist.

Gambling on Gen Future actually learning from the mistakes of History? If you're wondering how that's going, I hear the 13-year old gambling junkies are running 3:1 odds on those "predictive" markets society made legal for child junkies hooked on snorting pure shitcoin..

Re:

[geekmux]

You're both tards.

Spoken like a true WNBA commissioner.

Reality looks forward to a world ironically made wise by (Mike) Tysons Law, represented by a legal punch to the face for those commiting acts of senseless stupidity for shits, clicks, and giggles sake.

Stand proud knowing you'd be a plank owner.

Re:

[FireXtol]

You don't need a third party app store to download malicious apps off of the Google Play store. :)

Re: what i think they should have done

[commodore73]

Could Google be liable? Could purveyors of third party app stores be liable? Or only the purveyors of the malicious apps? At what point would the user be liable for their own actions?

Re:

[geekmux]

You don't need a third party app store to download malicious apps off of the Google Play store. :)

And that was a single vendor problem to solve. Yesterday.

Now the Google Play store gets to welcome the Compounding Interest app as a "fix". Which is akin to asking the society of Nigerian Princes hailing from North Korea to help develop the 21st Century email spam filter.

Re: what i think they should have done

[fluffernutter]

The same goes for groceries. They should just let everyone buy milk and meat from every store because the sooner someone dies of food poisoning the better. Yet the system works because people can choose to stay at the well known store and usually do. If you buy food from a guy with a grocery store in his truck and you get food poisoning that's on you.

Re: what i think they should have done

[commodore73]

Works pretty well in Thailand. Food poisoning is common but resultant deaths seem pretty rare. "America stands for freedom but if you think you're free...try walking into a deli and urinating on the cheese." The Vandals, Anarchy Burger, hold the government please.

Re:

[drnb]

So the judge wants to remove requiring a user to see a legal document before proceeding?

Is that grounds for appeal? Some sort of “ineffective representation” applied at the judge level rather than attorney level?

Re:

[allo]

Every Android app can request to install apps as soon as you activate sideloading. You have to acknowledge that and each app has an "Install App?" dialog. Also each app runs in a sandbox no matter from which install source. Last but not least, Google themselves are not very good at moderating their store ... so it's not about security but about their (almost) monopoly on app distribution for Android.

Re:

[luther349]

ye but google was going full steam on locking that down seems that a huge nope now.

Re:

[allo]

We missed the moment to say "no" to mobile devices not being locked platforms. Now we have two major operation systems, each locked to specific hardware, and no good options to build alternate systems. Yes, maybe you get Ubuntu Touch or Plasma active on a pixel phone. But what about the hundreds of other devices? On many you have problems to get an modified Android to boot. Basically none works without copying proprietary components from the official OS, making the distribution of alternative ROMs a legal g

Re:

[luther349]

yes people do make phones like that problem is nobody buys them. for the reasons you said.

Re: what i think they should have done

[xgerrit]

Isn't the Google App Store already malicious by stealing 15% to 30% of an app's cost from your bank account or the developer's?

Re:

[drnb]

There already was an “Install” button.

It sounds like the judge is ordering google to remove a dialog that removes information text. You know the place where legal info usually is displayed.

Re: Judge as software designer

[drinkypoo]

The judge is ordering equivalence.

Re:

[thegarbz]

I mean ... if I can one click install an application, why should an app store be any different.

Re:

[thegarbz]

No whoooooosh here. Just a reply to a stupid post by the OP. This is Slashdot. Stupid people (like most ACs) are the reason no one is given the benefit of the doubt.

Re:

[innocent_white_lamb]

If I can one-click to print a document why should there be a confirmation dialog when I click the button to reformat my hard drive?

An app store has more permissions and a greater ability to do severe damage to your phone than a checkers game.

Re:

[thegarbz]

If I can one-click to print a document why should there be a confirmation dialog when I click the button to reformat my hard drive?

An app store has more permissions and a greater ability to do severe damage to your phone than a checkers game.

If I could make a logical comparison between the installation of two pieces of software why should you not make a stupid reductio ad absurdum argument?

An app store has more permissions

It does not. None what so ever. Permissions are not managed through installation processes anywhere on Android, and a single permission "install from 3rd party sources" popup is the only Android level permission that is required for app stores, and this will only happen on first download and is not actually the process which anyone here is talking about. Tha

Link to the actual order?

[Schoenlepel]

The links in the article link to a previous article on /. and to an article on the verge. None of which has a link to the actual order.

sideloading control and 3rd party stores

[roman_mir]

Google is now adding more rules to make sideloading more difficult while Apple never provided a way to sideload an app in the first place. People need to be able to build and load their own apps without permission from the OS manufacturer, a phone is a computer with specialized hardware, we do have ability to build and run apps on our own hardware.

Re:

[roman_mir]

This problem needs to be solved by references, ask AI, people, is this program safe before installing.

Re:

[luther349]

then they program the ai to say anything that they dont like is unsafe.

Re:

[Mononymous]

Blamed? As in being held accountable?
Users don't get any compensation when their hardware and software do bad things to them.
You're using a lame excuse that not even Google came up with. They just want control, pure and simple--same as Apple.
Microsoft's operating systems never had any restriction on what software you could run, or where you could get it. Did Microsoft get any kind of trouble or "blame" when users ran malware?

Re:

[luther349]

scan the apk lots of online free scanners that are free and weill run it on every major av.

Re:

[luther349]

thats like say you can only download from the Microsoft store because the internet has virus.

Re:

[luther349]

it was/is a huge reason people choose android over ios.

Gatcha

[Shakes Fist]

While gambling and gatcha apps are on the Play store? Google can GTFO with pretending they're "protecting" anything except their revenue.