According to Reuters, the Portuguese company Aptoide alleged that Google had violated United States antimonopoly law by excluding its competitor’s Android Applied Shop through its monopoly application of distribution and billing systems.
The Portuguese company Aptoide, based in Lisbon, focuses on mobile applications distribution, claiming to be the third largest third party in the world, the Android Applied Shop. Aptoide stressed that, had Google not adopted “anti-competitive restraints” to crowd out smaller competitors, it could have put more pressure on Google pricing and policy. According to 2024 statistics, there are approximately 436,000 applications on the Aptoide platform, with more than 200 million users. Aptoide states that it provides lower commissions to developers and lower costs to users, but it is suffering irreparable damage as Google deprives competitors of access to top-level developers’ exclusive content and directs developers to Google Play and other “essential” services.
The suit was brought before the San Francisco Court of Justice of the United States of America, where Aptoide requested triple compensation for Google ‘ s alleged anticompetitive injunction. Aptoide filed a separate complaint on similar issues with the EU Antimonopoly Body in 2014. In November last year, Google agreed to reform Andre and other app stores to address the five-year antimonopoly case with Epic Gomes, the Fort Night developer.
In 2023, the jury found Google to be illegal in strangling competition, and the presiding judge subsequently ordered a comprehensive reform the following year. Google also defended itself in the United States Government case, and in August 2024 a judge ruled that its Internet search engine constituted an illegal monopoly. The judge then ordered Google to share the search data with its competitors, but did not require it to sell the Android operating system or the Chrome browser.
