Google vs. state: Google’s User Choice Billing program is not a “fake choice” of Google, its app marketplace isn’t

As part of the deal, Google said it would now allow app developers to charge consumers directly, instead of being billed through Google, where the company can take up to a 30% cut.

The process of making apps accessible for download outside of the company’s own app marketplace is going to be simplified.

Wilson White, a company vice president, said in a post that they were happy to have resolved their case with the states.

Google will contribute $630 million into a settlement fund for consumers and $70 million will be provided to the dozens of states that brought the legal action against the tech behemoth.

The terms of settlement were kept secret as the other legal case unfolded. This one, filed by Epic Games, the maker of the hit video game Fortnite, ended last week with a California jury unanimously deciding that Google’s Play Store violated U.S. competition laws by squelching competition and harming consumers.

A federal judge will hold hearings in January about what changes Google must make in order to remedy the anti-trust issues raised in court at the trial.

Several legal battles over whether the company abuses its immense power remain pending, as the company is facing more antitrust challenges than ever. The Justice Department brought a case against Alphabet’s search engine for allegedly violating the law in maintaining its dominance of online advertising.

The User Choice Billing participants are given a discounted rate of just 4 percent when they choose their payment system, and will not change now that the settlement has been reached. Not only did Google internally find that developers would lose money when users choose the 4 percent rate, but Google also gives companies like Spotify a free ride while apparently charging everyone else.

It appears that the right of developers to give a discounted rate to their users is being taken away by the internet giant. “Google is not required to allow developers to include links that take a User outside an app distributed through Google Play to make a purchase,” the settlement agreement reads. We are still waiting to find out whether Apple will allow links and/or buttons to alternative payment systems, based on the ruling in Epic v. Apple. But the Google / state AGs settlement suggests that regardless, Google will not be required to allow links.

More importantly, several of the most significant sounding changes here are tied to Google’s User Choice Billing program — which is mostly a fake choice, the Epic v. Google trial proved.

Google argued during the Epic v. Google trial that users were already perfectly able to install third-party apps on their devices through any number of means, and it claimed many of its agreements with developers, OEMs, and carriers did not require them to, for instance, exclusively put Google Play on a phone or its homescreen.

Does it sound like a lot? It does make for a slightly different landscape of the store than we’ve experienced over the past decade and change. But not only does every one of these concessions have an expiration date, many of them are arguably not real concessions.

The biggest change: Google will need to let developers steer consumers away from the Google Play Store for several years, if this settlement is approved.