Google asks Supreme Court to rescue it from its Epic lawsuit

Google is seeking the Supreme Court's intervention to pause the ruling it received in its lawsuit with Epic Games. The ruling, which came in October 2024, requires Google to open the Google Play Store to third-party app stores for three years. Google is asking the Supreme Court to stay the injunction before it goes into effect on October 17. Google argues that the injunction poses security and safety risks by enabling stores with malicious or pirated content, and it burdens developers with monitoring multiple stores. The company also claims the injunction will make it easier for developers to avoid compensating Google for its Play Store services. The article notes that Google's loss in the four-year legal battle with Epic Games was significant, as the company was not only ordered to open the Play Store to third-party app stores, but also prohibited from making deals around pre-installing the Play Store on phones or forcing developers to use its billing system. This is in contrast to Epic's case with Apple, where the developer only won a small concession. The Supreme Court previously denied Apple and Google's requests to review their cases last year, but the article suggests the court may respond differently this time due to the much larger changes Google will be forced to make if the injunction moves forward.