New York Attorney General Letitia James and her Connecticut counterpart William Tong are part of a coalition of 37 attorneys general filing a lawsuit against Google alleging the tech giant engaged in antitrust violations involving its app store.
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court of Northern District of California and claims the company engaged in exclusionary conduct related to the Google Play Store for Android mobile devices and Google Billing.
The attorneys general accused Google of using its industry dominance to limit competition with the Google Play Store, thus restricting consumer choice while driving up app prices.
It is the second multistate antitrust action taken against Google; a lawsuit filed last December charged the company with illegally maintaining monopoly power over search engines and related advertising markets.
“Google has served as the gatekeeper of the internet for many years, but more recently it has also become the gatekeeper of our digital devices ”“ resulting in all of us paying more for the software we use every day,” said James, who is co-leading the lawsuit.
“Once again, we are seeing Google use its dominance to illegally quash competition and profit to the tune of billions.”
“When Google first launched the Android platform,” Tong said, “they promised it would be open source and allow developers to create and distribute apps without unnecessary restriction. They broke that promise.”
He added that the coalition is “fighting to restore free and fair access to the digital marketplace.”
