Mr. Pichai: Tear down this wall!
A federal judge on Monday ordered Google to tear down the digital walls shielding its Android app store from competition as punishment for maintaining an illegal monopoly that helped expand the company’s internet empire.
The injunction issued by U.S. District Judge James Donato will require Google to make several changes that the Mountain View, California, company had been resisting. Those include a provision that will require its Play Store for Android apps to distribute rival third-party app stores so consumers can download them to their phones, if they so desire.
This is good news — but the judge’s order still needs to be carried out. Until that happens, a true victory has not been won and this is merely a promising development.