Google agrees to pay $700 million in Play app store antitrust settlement

Investing.com -- Alphabet's (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google has agreed to pay $700 million to settle a lawsuit brought against the search giant by U.S. states and consumers over alleged anticompetitive practices at its Play app store on Android devices, court filings showed on Monday.

The settlement, which was first agreed upon in September and still requires a judge's final approval, will see Google place $630M into a fund for consumers and $70M into a separate fund for the states. Google has also promised to make changes to the Play store that will help boost competition.

Google had been accused of quashing the use of alternative payment methods on the Play Store, allowing it to collect greater fees on digital purchases. The company did not admit to any wrongdoing, but said it was moving to give app and game developers an expanded selection of billing options.

The terms of the settlement come after "Fortnite"-maker Epic Games emerged victorious in a similar case last week.

In a post on social media platform X, Epic Games Chief Executive Tim Sweeney called the states' settlement "an unfortunate outcome," arguing that the plaintiffs could have received larger damages from Google "if they'd stayed in the fight a few weeks longer."

Shares in Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL) were little changed in U.S. premarket trading on Tuesday.