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A San Francisco compliance hearing showed Google carrying rival app stores it had made effectively unsearchable. The judge answered with a testable threshold and a one-week deadline.
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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" [8].
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 [3][4]. Google began doing that on 22 July, twenty-two days before the hearing [5][27].
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 [15]. Donato called that banner "friction... that has no purpose whatsoever" [13].
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 [9][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 [17]. In Android Authority's account, the court did not reject that reasoning outright, only safety used as a shield for market position [18]. Google has a week, which puts the deadline at 20 August, and has not said whether it will appeal any part of it [19].
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 [20]. That is a different route, outside any store, from the one in court [21], but it lands 41 days after the compliance deadline [28].
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 [22][29]. 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 [23]. Two days after launch, The Verge was asking readers whether they could see a rival store in US Play at all [24].
Ranked by verification strength, evidence, and original report placement.
Epic's lawyer Yonatan Even searched Google Play for "store for apps" and no third-party stores appeared, only physical ones.
Donato reacted from the bench: "Wait, why did Walmart come up?" and added "That's not good."
Donato said the "are you looking for" banner is "friction... that has no purpose whatsoever".
Ars Technica reported that the link to the Play Store's alternative app store page is buried several levels deep in menus, and that Epic's lawyer showed searches for "app store" and "aptoide" did not show the intended results, with Play instead showing an "are you looking for" banner linking to the third-party app store page.
The hearing ran on 13 August in a San Francisco courtroom and was a compliance check, not a new case.
Google has a week to make the changes, putting the deadline on 20 August, and Google has not said whether it will appeal any part of it.
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Courtroom record, three independent accounts
Three publishers independently report the same hearing with overlapping specifics: the failed searches, the bench quotes, the 'not acceptable' ruling and the one-week deadline. Dates, quoted language and the named Epic lawyer are consistent across accounts, and the 70 percent standard appears verbatim in two of them. Weaknesses are second-hand attribution chains (MLex and Android Authority relayed through TNW, The Verge relayed by all three), no on-record Google statement beyond counsel's in-court agreement, and single-source status for the Play Catalog Access terms and the sideloading schedule.
One storefront carried, discovery broken
Real deployment exists but is thin: carriage began 22 July and exactly one rival store — Aptoide Games — was live in US Play as of 10 August, three days before the hearing. That single listing was effectively unsearchable, gated behind an extra View tap and an interstitial banner, and its reach to actual users is unmeasured, with The Verge reduced to asking readers whether they could see it. Entry is also priced and conditioned via Play Catalog Access, and no supplied source names another store preparing to enter.
Fix announced, compliance unverified
Slightly overstated. Headlines report that Google 'will make rival app stores easier to find' and that a judge has ordered a fix, but on the record all that exists is counsel's in-court agreement, a 20 August deadline that had not passed at publication, one live storefront, and no post-change verification of search or install behaviour. TNW pulls the other way by noting the countervailing 30 September sideloading tightening and the patchy visibility of the single entrant, which keeps the gap small rather than large.
Adversarial litigants shaping the record
Nearly every fact enters through an interested party. Epic's lawyer chose the demonstration queries; Google frames the same friction as user and device protection tied to system permissions and had earlier tried to settle in a way that, per Ars, kept rival stores out — while simultaneously negotiating a global partnership with Epic. Aptoide has a commercial stake in being findable and pays a $5,000 annual fee for carriage. The three publishers are ad-supported outlets in the Android and consumer-tech beat, two of them building on The Verge's reporting rather than their own courtroom access.
Solid on the order, thin on outcomes
High confidence in what happened in court — the ruling language, the specific defects and the deadline are corroborated across three publishers. Lower confidence in consequences: no verification that the changes shipped by 20 August, no Google appeal position, no measurement of user-visible availability, and single-source status for the entry economics and the sideloading timetable.
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Distinct publishers with included, body-backed reporting in this cluster.
9to5google.com
1 article · August 14, 2026
arstechnica.com
1 article · August 14, 2026
thenextweb.com
1 article · August 14, 2026
theverge.com
1 article · August 13, 2026