Google’s loss in the Epic case—a federal jury yesterday found unanimously that Google’s rules for the Android Play Store broke U.S. antitrust law—is seismic stuff for multiple reasons.
Firstly and somewhat incredibly, this is the first time a Big Tech firm has lost an antitrust case in the U.S., as competition wonk Matt Stoller pointed out in a blog post yesterday. Antitrust cases have obviously effected change in the sector before—see Microsoft’s 2001 settlement with the Justice Department—but this is different. The verdict may eventually have a broader impact across Silicon Valley, though right now it’s Google’s problem.
