Donato puts a number on Play compliance: 70 percent of phrasings must find rival stores

A compliance hearing in San Francisco on 13 August turned into a live demonstration that Google's court-ordered opening of Play to rival app stores fails at the only step that matters, which is finding them ^[1][6]. Judge James Donato responded by putting a number into the record rather than a principle: search has to work for "every possible variation that's even only 70 percent properly phrased" ^[9].

The remedy itself is old news. A jury found unanimously that Google held an illegal monopoly over Android apps ^[2], Google lost the case in 2023 [c2b], and Donato set the remedy in October 2024, requiring Google to carry rival Android stores inside Play with complete access to its full app catalogue for several years ^[17][18]. Google began doing that on 22 July, twenty-two days before the hearing ^[28][29].

The demo was the argument. Epic's lawyer Yonatan Even searched Play for "store for apps" and got physical retailers, no third-party stores ^[6]. "Wait, why did Walmart come up?" Donato asked from the bench, then: "That's not good" ^[7]. According to Ars Technica's account, searches for "app store" and "aptoide" also failed to return the intended result, surfacing an "are you looking for" banner instead, while the alternative store page sat several menu levels deep ^[5]. Donato called that banner "friction... that has no purpose whatsoever" ^[4].

Google had already described the mechanism itself: it said users would need either a direct link or specific search phrases to find third-party stores ^[14]. Put next to a query returning Walmart, that is carriage without distribution. The second defect was the install flow, where a rival store required a View tap before an Install button appeared, unlike ordinary listings where Install is one tap ^[11]. Google's counsel agreed to fix search, and third-party stores will be treated more like standard apps with Install replacing View, per 9to5Google ^[10][12]. Android Authority reported the court characterising the extra steps as deliberate anticompetitive friction aimed at deterring everyday users ^[16].

Google's position is that this friction protects users and devices, since installing another store touches system permissions ^[19]. In Android Authority's account, the court did not reject that reasoning outright, only safety used as a shield for market position ^[20]. Google has a week, which puts the deadline at 20 August, and has not said whether it will appeal any part of it ^[8].

The counterweight is on the calendar. New sideloading rules start 30 September, requiring developer verification and imposing a 24-hour waiting period for apps from unverified developers ^[24]. That is a different route, outside any store, from the one in court ^[25], but it lands 41 days after the compliance deadline ^[27].

Only one entrant is affected so far. Aptoide Games, run from Lisbon and building Android storefronts since 2009, became the first rival store inside US Play on 10 August, three days before the hearing ^[13][21]. It reports around 25 million monthly users and more than 400,000 apps, and its route in, Play Catalog Access, carries a $5,000 annual review fee and a 1 percent malware threshold ^[15]. Two days after launch, The Verge was asking readers whether they could see a rival store in US Play at all ^[26].