A federal judge gave Google one week to fix how the Play Store handles searches and installs for rival Android app stores, ruling on Thursday that the company's current design amounts to "anticompetitive friction" that undermines a court order already in effect. US District Judge James Donato set an August 20 deadline during a compliance hearing in San Francisco in the long-running Epic Games v. Google antitrust case.
Epic's lawyers showed the court that typing "store for apps" into the Play Store's search bar returned no listings for competing app marketplaces at all — only results for physical retailers such as Walmart. Separately, Google had replaced the standard "Install" button with a "View" button for Aptoide, currently the only rival app store available on the Play Store, adding an extra step that discourages downloads and that mainstream apps do not face.
Donato was blunt about the search problem. "That is not acceptable, that has to be fixed," he said from the bench, adding that he wanted "every possible variation that's even only 70 percent properly phrased" to surface relevant results, according to a report on the hearing. Google agreed during the hearing to make the requested changes within the one-week window.
A remedy two years in the making
The order is the latest step in a case that has moved slowly since a jury found in 2023 that Google held an illegal monopoly over Android app distribution and in-app billing. Donato issued a permanent injunction in 2024 requiring Google to loosen its Play Store controls, a ruling the Supreme Court later allowed to stand. Google and Epic reached a separate settlement in late 2025, and Google began rolling out formal support for third-party app stores on the Play Store in March.
Thursday's hearing shows Donato is continuing to police how that rollout actually functions for users, not just whether Google nominally complies with the letter of his order. The same enforcement posture — treating implementation details as central to the remedy — is the mechanism Donato has used against Apple in the parallel Epic v. Apple case, and failure to meet the deadline would expose Google to contempt-of-court proceedings.
Google has not issued a detailed public statement beyond agreeing in court to make the fixes. The company has previously argued that its Play Store changes already go beyond what courts elsewhere, including in the European Union under the Digital Markets Act, have required of it.
The August 20 deadline sets up a near-term test of whether Google's compliance holds. Epic and outside developers are expected to re-run the same search terms once the deadline passes, and Donato has signaled he will keep close watch on the case rather than treat his 2024 injunction as a one-time fix.