A federal judge in California has granted Google a temporary injunction to postpone his broad ruling compelling the company to allow more competitors to access its Play app store.
TakeAway Points:
- Google has requested a federal judge in California a stay of a broad court decision forcing it to let more competition into its Play app store.
- The judge issued the injunction on Oct. 7 in a case brought by “Fortnite” maker Epic Games, which persuaded a federal jury last year that Google was illegally monopolizing how consumers download apps on Android devices and how they pay for in-app transactions.
- A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers asked AT&T, Verizon Communications, and Lumen Technologies on Friday to answer questions after a report Chinese hackers accessed the networks of U.S. broadband providers.
Google asks judge to hold on its ruling
In a court filing on Friday night, Google said U.S. District Judge James Donato’s injunction order, which goes into effect on Nov. 1, would harm the company and introduce “serious safety, security, and privacy risks into the Android ecosystem.”
The tech giant, a unit of Alphabet, asked Donato to stay the order while it pursues an appeal.
The judge issued the injunction on Oct. 7 in a case brought by “Fortnite” maker Epic Games, which persuaded a federal jury last year that Google was illegally monopolizing how consumers download apps on Android devices and how they pay for in-app transactions.
The judge’s order said Google must allow users to download competing third-party Android app platforms or stores and can no longer prohibit the use of competing in-app payment methods. It also bars Google from making payments to device makers to preinstall its app store and from sharing revenue generated from the Play Store with other app distributors.
If Donato denies Google’s bid to put the injunction on hold, the company can ask the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to do so while it appeals the jury’s underlying antitrust verdict.
Google filed its notice of appeal to the 9th Circuit on Thursday. The appeals court ultimately would be expected to weigh and rule on Google’s challenge to Donato’s order.
US lawmakers investigate telecoms on Chinese hacking report
A bipartisan group of U.S. lawmakers asked AT&T, Verizon Communications, and Lumen Technologies on Friday to answer questions after a report Chinese hackers accessed the networks of U.S. broadband providers.
The Wall Street Journal reported Saturday hackers obtained information from systems the federal government uses for court-authorized wiretapping and said the three companies were among the telecoms whose networks were breached.
House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican, and the top Democrat on the committee, Representative FrankPallone,e along with Representatives Bob Latta and Doris Matsui, asked the three companies to answer questions. They are seeking a briefing and detailed answers by next Friday.
“There is a growing concern regarding the cybersecurity vulnerabilities embedded in U.S. telecommunications networks,” the lawmakers said.
They are asking for details on what information was seized and when the companies learnt about the intrusion. However, it was unclear when the hack occurred.
Hackers might have held access for months to network infrastructure used by the companies to cooperate with court-authorized U.S. requests for communications data, the Journal said. It said the hackers had also accessed other tranches of internet traffic.
China’s foreign ministry said on Sunday that it was not aware of the attack described in the report but said the United States had “concocted a false narrative” to “frame” China in the past.
