Google hit with Antitrust Lawsuit brought by 36 States and Washington, D.C.

Google's Android app store is the subject of an antitrust lawsuit brought by 36 states and Washington, D.C. on Wednesday — the latest installment in the ongoing showdown between tech giants and the regulators that seek to bring them to heel.

Google's plans to force all app developers who traffic in its Google Play Store to pay a 30 percent commission on sales of digital goods or services. Scheduled to go into effect in September, that rule change would be a formalization of a long-held but seldom-enforced policy wherein any app developer using the Play Store must use Google's proprietary payment system to make purchases.

The suit isn't the only legal challenge dogging Google lately, though, as the company currently finds itself in the crosshairs of three other, separate antitrust lawsuits. In the first suit, filed October 2020, the Justice Department and 14 states accused Google of attempting to dominate the mobile search market. In a second suit filed in December of that year, 38 states and territories claimed that Google used anticompetitive tactics to achieve a monopoly in in general search and search advertising. And in a third suit, filed by 15 states and territories, Google stands accused of using its considerable power to crush competitors in the digital ad space.