Fortnite maker challenges Google's ability to take a cut of in-app purchases

abcnews.go.com:

Google on Monday will try to protect a lucrative piece of its internet empire at the same time it’s still entangled in the biggest U.S. antitrust trial in a quarter century

SAN FRANCISCO — Google on Monday will try to protect a lucrative piece of its internet empire at the same time it’s still entangled in the biggest U.S. antitrust trial in a quarter century.

The latest threat will unfold in a San Francisco federal court, where a 10-person jury will decide whether Google's digital payment processing system in the Play Store that distributes apps for phones running on its Android software has been illegally driving up prices for consumers and developers.

The case targeting Google's Play Store is being brought by Epic Games, the maker of the popular Fortnite video game, which lost in a similar 2021 trial focused on many of the same issues in Apple's iPhone app store.

Although a federal judge sided with Apple on most fronts in that trial, the outcome opened one potential crack in the digital fortress that the company has built around the iPhone.

The judge and an appeals court both determined Apple should allow apps to provide links to other payment options, a change that could undermine the 15% to 30% commissions that both Apple and Google collect on digital purchases made within a mobile app. Apple is appealing that part of the ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Epic is also challenging most elements of the case that it lost.

Epic is now taking aim at Google's commission system, even though Android software is already set up to allow other stores, such as Samsung's installed on its phones, distribute apps that work on the operating system. Even so, Epic maintains that Google still maintains a stranglehold on the