Some North Carolinians to Receive Payments as Part of $700 Million Settlement in Google Play Store Antitrust Lawsuit

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, August 20, 2026
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RALEIGH- Some Google Play Store customers in North Carolina will begin to receive restitution payments as part of a $700 million settlement with Google. The North Carolina Department of Justice led a bipartisan coalition of 52 other attorneys general in resolving a lawsuit that accused Google of anticompetitive behavior by restricting Google Play Store competition, which limited customers' choices and drove up prices. North Carolina consumers will receive approximately $20 million in restitution.

"Google boxed out its competition, which meant Google Play Store customers were forced to pay an extra charge to purchase things through apps," said Attorney General Jeff Jackson. "They can't do that. This settlement means money back in the hands of people who were overcharged because Google broke the rules. It's also means Google can't play this rigged game anymore."

The Attorney General's Office filed a lawsuit in 2021 alleging Google was preventing other app stores from being preloaded on Android devices, buying off developers who might have launched rival app stores, deterring customers from directly downloading apps to their devices, and forcing app developers and users to use Google Play Billing for in-app purchases so it could charge processing fees as high as 30%.

The attorneys general reached a $700 million settlement with Google in 2023. Now, a federal court has signed off on the agreement, meaning restitution payments will start going out to consumers who were impacted.

Google will pay restitution to customers who made purchases on Google Play between August 2016 and September 2023. Most people who are eligible will receive payments through PayPal or Venmo and won't need to fill out a claim form. Consumers who don't have PayPal or Venmo will be able to file a claim through a separate process. More information about how payments will be distributed can be found here.

Additionally, the settlement means Google must:

• Let app developers allow users to pay through in-app systems other than Google Play Billing for at least five years.

• Allow developers to offer lower prices to consumers who use non-Google billing systems for at least five years.

• Allow developers to point customers toward non-Google billing systems with advertisements for cheaper prices within their apps for at least five years.

• Not enter contracts requiring that Play Store to be the only pre-loaded app store on a device for at least five years.

• Allow third-party apps to be installed on Android devices from outside the Google Play Store for at least seven years.

• Revise and reduce warnings shown on Android devices when users try to download an app from somewhere other than the Google Play Store for at least five years.

• Maintain Android support for other app stores for four years.

• Not require developers to launch app catalogs on Play Store at the same time they launch on other apps for at least four years.

• Submit compliance reports to an independent monitor for at least five years.

Attorney General Jeff Jackson has fought to protect North Carolinians from companies that engage in anticompetitive behavior. In July, he reached a settlement with the drugmaker Glenmark to resolve price-fixing allegations. In June, he reached a settlement with three egg producers to resolve allegations that they manipulated information that helps set egg prices. Earlier that month, he filed an amicus brief in a Chemours case, urging a court to ensure that when antitrust cases are heard, the conduct is considered in its entirety, which is crucial to proving anticompetitive behavior. In May, he shut down a secret data exchange that raised meat prices. In April, he won a court order temporarily freezing the Nexstar and Tegna TV merger and won a trial against Live Nation and Ticketmaster. He is also suing RealPage for allegedly exploiting landlords' competitively sensitive information to create a pricing algorithm and has reached settlements with three of six landlords to stop the use of non-public information to set rents.

Additionally, Attorney General Jackson led a bipartisan coalition of attorneys general and the United States Department of Justice in proposing changes to restore competition to end Google's illegal monopoly over search engines in 2025. The proposal came after a judge ruled that Google maintained a monopoly in online search and search text ads following a 2020 lawsuit by North Carolina and 38 other states.

Attorney General Jeff Jackson is joined in finalizing the Google Play Store settlement by the attorneys general of all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. The attorneys general litigated much of this case alongside Epic Games and Match. Match announced a separate settlement, and Epic Games took its case to trial.

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