Judge orders Google to calculate the costs of Epic’s biggest Play Store demand

Photo illustration by Cath Virginia / The Verge | Photos by Philip Pacheco, Bloomberg, Getty Images

Despite Epic Games’ surprise win at trial, I was skeptical that Judge James Donato would seriously consider forcing Google to let the Epic Games Store live inside its own Google Play Store, and give it access to every app inside Google Play. Those were two of the biggest demands that Epic revealed in April.

But Judge Donato is indeed considering them. He’s ordered Google to calculate the costs of complying with those demands by June 24th, one month from today:

Google will file by June 24, 2024, a proffer stating in detail the tech work required and economic costs, if any, to provide “Catalog Access” and “Library Porting” to competing app stores for a period of up to 6 years. See MDL Dkt. No. 952 at 7. The proffer may also address tech...

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