In late October, five influential industry associations and experts filed amicus briefs highlighting the risks from a district court’s unprecedented order requiring Google to host and distribute third party platforms and applications. 

Forcing an app store to host third parties harms both developers and consumers

If the district court’s remedies order goes forward, app developers—especially small businesses—will struggle with increased costs. These developers have finite resources and must allocate time and money to building and updating their apps for each platform. Opening Android’s app store to third parties would require developers to devote time and money to adapting their apps to any number of platforms instead of just one. 

— App developers “will have to devote time and resources, both of which are in short supply for small developers and startups, to sort through the unknown number of new storefronts… While the injunction allows app developers to remove themselves from third-party stores on an individual basis… that system will only reinforce the need for developers to spend time and resources determining whether to remove their offerings from a specific store.” The App Association writes in their brief. 

The remedies order would also force Google to divert resources from innovations that benefit consumers. Currently, Google focuses its resources on innovating its app store to ensure the platform is as successful as possible. Under the remedies order, Google would instead spend those resources on compliance and solving logistical challenges—for example, completing app downloads from third-party app stores. Ultimately, consumers will bear the brunt of this resource shift. As NetChoice and the Chamber of Progress illustrate in their joint brief, “The [remedies] injunction will therefore stifle innovation in the app distribution market rather than foster healthy competition. This will harm consumers… who will face a stagnant app store market with fewer innovations.”

Mandating third-party access to Google Play puts user security at risk

Mandating third party access would deconstruct existing safeguards and leave a cybersecurity vacuum. Google Play has developed careful safeguard to ensure consumers can access and download apps safely. For example, Google bans developers from including external links to download applications and monitors its app store accordingly. However, monitoring a platform that’s open to third parties will be much harder to keep secure. 

— A group of cybersecurity experts explain: “[W]hereas Google is able to scan and vet the applications that it makes available through the Play Store, mitigating the risk of malware and quickly taking down malicious and unwanted applications through centralized mechanisms, Google cannot possibly track every application available for download on the Internet that would be accessible through the kinds of external links mandated by the District Court.”

— The remedies order would also directly harm Google’s ability to address issues like fraudulent payment system. According to the International Center for Law and Economics, “steering consumers to other payment systems, together with catalog sharing and third-party app store distribution, could expose Google Play users to privacy, security, and safety issues, among others. These are moving targets online, but the injunction would limit Google’s efforts to serve these critical consumer interests, as Google would have to prove that any measures it takes with respect to third-party app stores and their apps ‘are strictly necessary and narrowly tailored.'”

Forcing Google to host competitors is unprecedented and inconsistent with antitrust precedent. 

The Supreme Court has repeatedly held that antitrust law does not impose a “duty to deal” on companies, especially in cases where such obligations could hinder business autonomy and innovation. In Verizon Communications Inc. v. Trinko, the Court clarified that companies have the right to choose their business partners, emphasizing that antitrust regulations generally avoid forcing companies to cooperate with competitors. 

— As Net Choice and the Chamber of Progress note in their joint brief, “The court identified no instances where a court required a company to not only host and disseminate its competitors but also stock the shelves of their virtual stores. This unprecedented injunction would ‘suppress pro-competitive innovation’.”