New step in the fight against the domination of the tech giants.
Dozens of states in the United States filed a lawsuit Wednesday against Google accusing it of having created an "illegal monopoly" in access to mobile applications through its online store Play Store.
This legal action comes against a backdrop of growing criticism of large groups in the sector, which continued to increase their dominance during the pandemic.
Anti-competitive methods
"We are bringing this lawsuit to end Google's illegal monopoly and finally give voice to millions of consumers and entrepreneurs," said New York Attorney General Letitia James, one of the leading figures in this process, on Wednesday. .
According to her, "Google is suffocating millions of small businesses that are just trying to compete."
"This company has made hundreds of millions of consumers turn to Google, and Google alone, for access to the millions of apps they might want to download to their phones and tablets," she said. added.
The lawsuit backed by 37 US attorneys general accuses Google of employing anti-competitive methods to discourage the distribution of apps through channels other than its Play Store, which is pre-installed on all Android smartphones and where Google collects commissions on transactions.
"Android and Google Play provide an openness and a choice that other platforms simply do not", defended the director of public policies of Google, Wilson White.
Google, whose parent company achieved $ 55.31 billion in sales in the first quarter of 2021, mainly thanks to online advertising, is accused of establishing itself as a "go-between" between application developers and consumers, forced to pay more in the absence of competition.
Apple also accused of abuse of dominant position
Apple has also been accused of abuse of a dominant position with similar arguments for its application store, the essential App Store.
An emblematic case is the high-profile lawsuit between him and Epic Games, the publisher of the Fortnite game, and for which a decision is expected soon.
Epic Games accuses Apple of abusing its dominant position with the App Store, the only gateway for applications and other content to iPhones and iPads, and asks it to authorize alternative platforms.
The App Store, according to the lawyer for Epic Games, works like a “walled garden”, a metaphor denouncing a system in which tech giants can set their rules, favor their own products, attract and trap users and developers.
Android phone users can theoretically download applications by means other than the Play Store, but the New York attorney general blames Google for putting in place "barriers that discourage (them)" from this practice.
Google has also reportedly succeeded in dissuading companies like Samsung from developing platforms competing with the Play Store, according to the prosecution.
According to figures from the American firm Sensor Tower published at the end of June, $ 41.5 billion was spent on the Apple App Store and $ 23.4 billion on Google Play between January and June, an increase of 25% over a year.
The Gafam often attacked
The Gafams (Google, Apple, Facebook, Amazon and Microsoft) are regularly attacked on the competitive front in the United States - where President Joe Biden has toughened his tone by appointing several anti-monopoly figures to major positions - and in Brussels, headquarters of the European Commission, when they are not questioned about taxation or data protection.
In June, Democratic and Republican parliamentarians from the US Congress introduced five bills directly targeting the “monopolies” of Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon.
“Currently, unregulated tech monopolies have too much power over the economy,” wrote Democrat David Cicilline, chairman of an anti-monopoly committee in the House of Representatives.
"They are in a unique position to pick winners and losers, destroy small businesses, raise prices for consumers and put people out of work," he accused.
In Brussels, Google has been fined three times, totaling 8.25 billion euros, in three different antitrust cases, and the American giant faces a new investigation into its activities in online advertising.
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