The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) issued a draft determination on 22 July 2026 proposing to authorise a settlement between Google LLC and Epic Games, Inc., letting the two companies implement terms that would open Android to third-party app stores and alternative in-app payment systems in Australia. Public submissions closed 7 August 2026; a final decision is expected in the coming weeks. The proposed authorisation would run until 30 September 2032 (ACCC public register).
The application was lodged on 17 March 2026, days after Google and Epic settled their long-running Australian litigation. The ACCC had already granted interim authorisation on 23 June 2026 to let non-Australian elements of the deal take effect for Australian developers while the full assessment continued.
What the settlement actually changes
Three changes matter most. First, Google will run a Registered App Stores program allowing qualifying third-party app marketplaces to be installed on Android with a single click, rather than routed through the friction and "scary warnings" that previously discouraged sideloading. Second, developers gain the right to steer users toward payment options other than Google Play Billing, including external web links, displayed side-by-side in-app. Third, Google's standard Play Store service fee for new-install transactions drops from 30% to 20%, with a further reduced rate — reporting puts it near 9% — for transactions routed through a developer's own payment system rather than Google's (TechCrunch; MLex). Australia is scheduled to receive the new fee structure by 30 September 2026, alongside the US, EEA and UK rollout.
This is the ACCC's own read of the deal: authorisation would "increase competition in app distribution and payment processing by allowing third-party app stores and alternative payment systems, while reducing service fees for many developers" (ACCC draft determination, 22 July 2026).
The case for caution, stated fairly
Skeptics of nodding this through are not wrong to be cautious. Authorisation under Australia's Competition and Consumer Act 2010 exists precisely because a settlement negotiated bilaterally between two litigants can lock in terms that suit them without necessarily serving the wider market — smaller developers and rival app stores had no seat at the table when Google and Epic wrote these terms. A cap set at 20% (or 9% off-platform) is itself an administered price, not a competitive outcome; nothing stops Google from treating it as a floor rather than ceiling once locked in by a 2032 sunset date. And handing Google discretion over which third-party stores qualify as "Registered" — with quality and safety gatekeeping it controls — could let Google use security review as a slower-moving substitute for the commission structure it just gave up. The ACCC's own 2021 Digital Platforms Services Inquiry flagged exactly this risk: contractual concessions extracted through litigation can be narrower and more fragile than a properly designed ex-ante rule.
Why authorisation is still the right call
Those concerns argue for scrutiny of the specific terms, not for blocking the settlement. The ACCC has statutory authorisation review precisely so it can test whether public benefit outweighs any lessening of competition before terms take effect — and a five-week submission window addressed exactly the gatekeeping and pricing-floor risks above. What the settlement delivers, even imperfectly, is structural: Android moves from a single mandatory storefront to a market where competing storefronts can exist without Google's warning screens steering users away from them. That is more than years of ex-ante digital-platform rulemaking, in Australia or anywhere else, has managed to force onto iOS.
The contrast with Apple is instructive. The Digital Markets Act forced some of these changes onto iOS in the EU through statute; Android is getting there through a settlement of private litigation, reviewed and authorised by a competition regulator rather than mandated by a standing rulebook. That is not a lesser path — it is arguably the more targeted one, since it responds to conduct that was actually litigated and proven, rather than to a category of platform deemed a priori in need of correction.
What to watch
The final determination should turn on two things the draft leaves open: whether Google's Registered App Store vetting criteria are objective and appealable, and whether the fee structure is reviewed before its 2032 expiry rather than treated as fixed for six years. Australian developers and rival marketplaces that raised concerns in submissions by 7 August deserve a determination that names those risks explicitly, even while approving the deal. A settlement that opens Android to real competition is worth authorising — but authorisation is not a blank check, and the ACCC should say so in writing.