• by Wendy Davis , November 4, 2025

Tech industry groups NetChoice and Chamber of Progress are urging the Supreme Court to hear Google's appeal of an antitrust injunction that requires the company to make extensive changes to its app store.

The injunction "imposes a sweeping duty to deal that will reshape the app economy and dangerously expand the scope of available antitrust remedies," the organizations write in a friend-of-the-court brief filed Tuesday with the Supreme Court.

The groups' papers come in a legal battle dating to 2020, when Fortnite developer Epic Games alleged that Google's Play policies violated antitrust law. Epic essentially argued that Google wrongly required companies that distributed apps on the Play store to pay commissions on in-app purchases made by users.

Google countered that it allows Android users to sideload apps -- meaning to download apps from sources other than the Play store. But Epic argued that Google thwarted the sideloading process by displaying warnings about potential security risks. (Google settled a separate antitrust suit brought by attorneys general to promising to “streamline” the sideloading process.)

Epic's suit against Google went to trial in late 2023, resulting in a jury verdict that Google created or maintained an illegal monopoly in two “markets” -- Android app distribution, and Android in-app billing. The jury also found that Google wrongly tied company's ability to distribute through the Play store to Google's payment system.

U.S. District Court Judge James Donato in the Northern District of California subsequently entered a broad injunction that includes provisions requiring Google to host other companies' app stores, and allow outside businesses access to its library of apps.

Google unsuccessfully appealed to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld both the antitrust finding and Donato's injunction.

Late last month, the company asked the Supreme Court to hear an appeal. Among other arguments, Google says the injunction is too far-reaching.

"The injunction was entered at the request of a single private plaintiff, Epic Games, yet it compels Google to change its conduct toward over half-a-million non-party app developers," Google wrote in its petition for review.

Google added that the injunction is "akin to a court mandating that Wal-Mart provide its entire product catalog to Kohls, Dollar General, and Macy’s, and letting those stores set up shop on Wal-Mart’s sales floor."

NetChoice and the Chamber of Progress argue in their friend-of-the-court brief that the injunction wrongly forces Google to do business with competitors, and imposes "an unworkable system on third-party app developers."

The order "forces one competitor in the app store marketplace to affirmatively distribute rival app stores and to give those rival app stores access to its entire library of apps, restricts its ability to engage in content moderation, and exposes app developers and consumers to a Wild West of untested and unmoderated app stores," the groups write.

The organizations add that the injunction will "permit others to free-ride off of Google’s efforts, thereby reducing the incentive for those competitors to innovate."

Epic Games is expected to file a response later this month.