Testing the Limits of Anti-Competition

The latest Play Console restrictionis a testing gate:

developers with newly created personal Play Console accounts will soon be required to test their apps with at least 20 people for a minimum of two weeks before applying for access to production

This seems trivial to bypass ��� 20 sockpuppet accounts anda test monkeymight suffice. One imagines that somebody will create an underground service for this.

But Google can enact policies like this without much concern, as thereis nowhere else for developers to go, by and large.

That���s why it will be interesting to see if Epic v. Googlewill touch upon a key anti-competitive tactic: banning app distributors from the Play Store.If your app���s principal job is to help people install apps, you are out of luck. Eitheryou need to be a device manufacturer (e.g., Samsung) who can pre-install a store, oryour potential users will need to sideload your store.

If this ban could be removed ��� by lawsuit or by legislation ��� there could be amore concerted effort to offer the Play Store meaningful competition. Even if Google were to continuewith its policies, the competition would mean that there would be other useful avenues foraffected developers to use.