Antitrust News, Tips, Tricks & Ideas

Fortnite video game maker Epic Games has urged a federal judge in California to force Google to open up its Play Store to greater competition after a jury found the U.S. tech giant had abused its power as a gatekeeper for apps on the Android mobile platform.

Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Elon Musk's X and Match Group on Wednesday joined "Fortnite" video game maker Epic Games' protest that Apple has failed to honor a court-ordered injunction governing payments in its lucrative App Store.

The US Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear a challenge by Apple to a lower court's decision requiring changes to certain rules in its lucrative App Store, as the justices shunned the lengthy legal battle between the iPhone maker and Epic Games, maker of the popular video game Fortnite.

Sony has been fined €13.5 million by French antitrust regulator Autorité de la Concurrence, which has accused the company of "abusing its dominant position in the market" by restricting third-party PlayStation 4 controllers.

Google has agreed to pay $700 million in an antitrust settlement with US state attorney generals.

Epic Games came out victorious in the monumental legal battle against Google over the company's monopoly over the Android app marketplace and alleged the company used off-handed tactics to keep its control over the space thereby denying a fair chance for others to participate in the business on an equal footing. The San Francisco jury on Monday, December 11 unanimously delivered the decision in the Google antitrust case, deciding Google's tie between the Google Play app store and its Google Play Billing payment services was illegal, and Project Hug deals with game developers and OEMs, which dictated the distribution agreement were all noncompetitive. Now, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has given an interview explaining the details of the lawsuit and the main reason why the company lost against Apple but managed to win against Google.

Fortnite developer Epic Games has claimed victory over Google in its antitrust case.

Epic Games has won the antitrust lawsuit it filed against Google after a jury determined the Google Play marketplace is an illegal monopoly.

Epic Games has won its antitrust case against Google, after the jury gave its verdict yesterday.

Epic Games has won its trial against Google over antitrust claims, with the jury deeming Google Play and its billing system to be an illegal monopoly.

Google has lost its antitrust trial to Epic Games, in a decision that could have major ramifications for app stores in the future.

Fortnite maker Epic Games has prevailed in its high-profile antitrust trial over Alphabet's Google, which alleged the Play app store operated as an illegal monopoly, in a ruling that if it holds could upend the entire app store economy.

On Monday, a jury sided with Epic Games over Google in an antitrust case that could reshape how app marketplaces like Google Play are allowed to operate.

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A federal court jury has decided that Google's Android app store has been protected by anticompetitive barriers that have damaged smartphone consumers and software developers, dealing a blow to a major pillar of a technology empire.

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Alphabet's Google on Monday will try to persuade a federal jury in San Francisco to reject antitrust claims by "Fortnite" maker Epic Games in a case that threatens Google's app store and transaction fees imposed on Android app developers.

A federal court jury is poised begin its deliberations in an antitrust trial focused on whether Google's efforts to profit from its app store for Android smartphones have been illegally gouging consumers and stifling innovation.

The CEO of PC games giant Valve, Gabe Newell, is set to appear in court in the near future.

Valve's CEO, Gabe Newell, finds himself compelled to appear in person for a deposition in the antitrust lawsuit filed by Wolfire Games, developers of Overgrowth. Despite Newell's initial plea for a remote deposition due to COVID-19 concerns, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington deemed his evidence insufficient to establish a particularized risk of serious illness.

Gabe Newell has been ordered to attend an in-person deposition relating to Overgrowth developer Wolfire Games' antitrust lawsuit against Valve despite his request to do it remotely.

The most damning evidence in the US antitrust trial against Alphabet Inc.'s Google that concluded in Washington this week came not from the parade of witnesses from Apple Inc., Microsoft Corp. and other companies, but from internal documents.

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Another big tech antitrust trial gets under way today as Epic Games squares off against Google over control of the app stores.

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 Amazon.com Inc. doubled the number of junk ads to boost profits and deleted internal communications to thwart a federal antitrust probe, according to fresh details released by the US Federal Trade Commission in a less redacted complaint against the online retail giant Thursday. 

Google executives downplayed the company's artificial intelligence position during testimony at a landmark federal antitrust trial, saying the Alphabet Inc. company has tried to be slow and cautious because of the dangerous power of the technology.

Google pays as much as $10 billion per year to ensure that users access the internet through its search engine — payments that have blocked startups and fellow tech giants Apple Inc. and Microsoft Corp. from competing, according to the US Justice Department.

The U.S. government is near the halfway mark in its court battle with Alphabet's Google, which it has accused of breaking antitrust law with the tactics it used to dominate online search and some aspects of advertising.

It was previously discovered that Google enticed Apple with a $20 billion deal that allows the search engine to remain the default on its millions of devices. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella even spoke of this partnership at a testimonial, believing that it gives the technology giant an unfair advantage in the market, but it is possible that this alliance might be coming to an end, assuming that an antitrust trial ends up going against Google’s favor.

Amazon is heading into one of its biggest sales events of the year — Prime Day — with a lawsuit hanging over its head that accuses it of preventing sellers from hawking their merchandise at lower prices on other sites.

On Monday, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella took the stand in the ongoing major antitrust trial of Google. He is appearing as a star witness for the US against Google. The trial's primary contention is that Google is using illegal and unfair practices to extend its monopoly in the market and is establishing a consumer behavior that makes it impossible for rivals to exist. Nadella, during his three-and-a-half hour-long testimony, mentioned a number of points to affirm the same and highlight the exclusive deals Google made in order to become the ‘default' option for consumers. He also claimed that the internet is really the ‘Google web'. Let us take a look at the 10 things Satya Nadella said during the antitrust trial.

French competition regulator Autorité De La Concurrence has conducted a raid on graphics giant Nvidia.

French authorities this week raided Nvidia's offices in the country in apparent effort to scrutinize the company’s growing dominance in the AI chip boom. 

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If you're in the business of creating large language models you might already think Nvidia's pricing for its H100 super-duper data center GPU, which sells for upwards of $30,000 a pop, is criminally expensive. Now Nvidia's broader cloud computing operations in France are under actual legal investigation.

Along with laying off hundreds of employees, Epic Games remains embroiled in a years-long legal battle with Apple. Recently, the Unreal Engine creator filed a writ of certiorari asking the US Supreme Court to review its lower court ruling made during the antitrust case between the two developers. 

The European General Court has dismissed Valve's appeal against the European Commission for infringing EU competition law.

Epic has filed a Writ of Certiorari asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review a lower court’s ruling on its antitrust case against Apple.

The UK's antitrust watchdog set out a new set of principles for regulating artificial intelligence and kick started a project to deepen its scrutiny of the fast-developing technology.

The U.S. Justice Department and a coalition of state attorneys general on Tuesday will begin a blockbuster antitrust trial in Washington, alleging that Alphabet's Google unlawfully abused its dominance in the search-engine market to maintain monopoly power.

Google faces its biggest ever legal challenge in a Washington court on Tuesday, as it fends off accusations from the US government that it acted unlawfully to build its overwhelming dominance of online search.

Big Tech is bracing for the European Union's biggest ever clampdown on anti-competitive practices in the digital economy, potentially provoking a new wave of legal battles between regulators and Silicon Valley.

Alphabet Inc.'s Google will face a scaled-down antitrust suit over its search business after a federal judge threw out some allegations by state attorneys general.

Google's dominance in online search has triggered a regulatory crackdown by South Africa's antitrust body.

After it was denied an injuction by a US federal court, the FTC has also put a hold on its internal challenge against Microsoft's acquisition of Activision Blizzard.