Judge gives Google one week to fix Play Store third-party app store flaws

A US judge found Google's initial rollout of third-party app stores in the Play Store inadequate and ordered the company to make improvements within a week.

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A US federal judge has given Google one week to revise how it presents third-party app stores in the Google Play Store, after finding the company's initial compliance with an antitrust remedy insufficient. The order came during a hearing on Thursday, August 13, before US District Judge James Donato, who is overseeing the long-running case brought by Epic Games.

Google began offering third-party app store downloads in the Play Store earlier this week, with Aptoide Games becoming the first such store available. This move followed a 2023 antitrust verdict in which the court found Google held an illegal monopoly on app distribution. Donato's remedy required Google to include third-party app stores in the Play Store, a requirement that was later modified into a settlement between Google and Epic near the end of 2025, which also included a global partnership agreement between the two companies. Despite that partnership, the two sides remain opposed in the US antitrust case.

At Thursday's hearing, Epic's lawyers demonstrated that searching for "store for apps" in the Play Store returned no app store results, only physical retail outlets such as Walmart. Judge Donato took issue with how Google displays third-party app stores in search results and during the installation process. According to the demonstration, third-party app stores are not shown in normal search results but are instead buried under a banner for third-party app stores. Additionally, Google replaced the usual "Install" button with a "View" button on Aptoide's page in the Play Store, a change Donato suggested could discourage downloads by adding extra menu layers.

"That is not acceptable, that has to be fixed. I want every possible variation that's even only 70 percent properly phrased," Donato said, according to the hearing transcript.

Google agreed to make the necessary changes and implement them within the next week. The company had first announced support for third-party app stores in March 2026, and the current rollout was part of the settlement reached with Epic. That settlement was itself a modified version of the remedy Donato had devised in 2024.