Two Cases, Two Theories, One Company
On July 22, 2026, Google switched on its Play Catalog Access Program, letting vetted third-party app stores list Google Play's full app and game catalog and route downloads through Play's own infrastructure. It is the concrete remedy for the Epic Games v. Google verdict: a jury found in December 2023 that Google's Play Store violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act, Judge James Donato issued a permanent injunction in October 2024, and the Ninth Circuit affirmed it on July 31, 2025. Google and Epic jointly abandoned a proposed alternative settlement on July 15, 2026, leaving the original injunction as the operative order — one written by a US court, for US conduct, enforceable only in the United States. Google's own enrollment terms say so explicitly: participating stores must "not use the Play Catalog to distribute apps to users outside of the United States," and pay Google $5,000 upfront plus $5,000 annually for the privilege.
Indonesian tech press — Kompas and YangCanggih among them — noted within days that Indonesian users get none of it. That is accurate, but it invites a comparison Jakarta's own case doesn't actually support. Indonesia has been litigating Google for four years too, and that case is now legally final. The Indonesian Supreme Court rejected Google's cassation appeal on March 10, 2026, closing out a Competition Commission (KPPU) proceeding that fined Google Rp202.5 billion in January 2025 for violations of Articles 17 and 25(1)(b) of Indonesia's 1999 competition law. But the KPPU case was never about letting rival stores onto Play's shelf. It was about the tie between Play Store access and Google Play Billing — developers who wanted their apps listed had to use Google's payment rails, at a 15-30% service fee, with no alternative. The remedy KPPU actually won is a User Choice Billing mandate: developers get access to alternative payment processors, plus a minimum 5% service-fee discount for a year.
Why the Comparison Is Apples to Oranges
Epic's theory was distribution-level foreclosure — Google using technical and contractual friction to keep competing app stores off Android devices altogether. The remedy that produced, catalog-sharing with rival storefronts, addresses exactly that harm. KPPU's theory was payment-level tying — forcing a single billing processor on developers who already had Play Store access. Its remedy, opening up billing choice, addresses that harm. Indonesia not receiving Play Catalog Access isn't evidence its regulator did a worse job; it's evidence the two cases proved different things. A country doesn't need a store-distribution remedy for a billing-tying violation.
That said, there's a fair objection to sit with before dismissing the frustration entirely: Indonesian developers and users are still stuck with a single storefront gatekeeper for actual distribution, and nothing in the KPPU record forecloses that Google's Android distribution practices in Indonesia deserve their own scrutiny. If sideloading friction, preinstallation terms, or exclusivity conditions on Indonesian OEMs mirror what Epic proved in the US, KPPU would need a fresh case to reach it — its 2022-2025 proceeding never tested that theory. The absence of a global catalog-sharing mandate is a real gap in what a single national regulator can accomplish against a company that designs its compliance obligations one jurisdiction at a time.
The Case for Restraint, and Its Limit
The steelman for demanding Indonesia get Play Catalog Access anyway is straightforward: Google already built the plumbing. Vetting third-party stores, sharing listings, processing downloads through Play's infrastructure — none of that is US-specific engineering. Extending eligibility to a market where Google has already been found liable for anticompetitive conduct costs Google little at the margin and would pre-empt the next KPPU filing before it's written.
But mandating that extension by regulatory fiat, rather than litigating the actual harm, is the wrong instinct. A US injunction is remedy for adjudicated US conduct; treating it as a template Indonesia should import wholesale — without its own finding that store-level foreclosure, not just billing tying, occurred here — would be regulation by analogy rather than by evidence. Indonesia's competition law already produced a real, enforceable outcome tailored to what was actually proven. That is proportionate regulation working as intended, not a consolation prize next to Epic's win.
What Indonesia's regulators should take from this moment isn't envy of the US remedy — it's the roadmap for winning a comparable one, if the facts support it. KPPU has now demonstrated it can run a multi-year investigation, survive Google's full appellate track, and land a fine that stuck. If distribution-level foreclosure is happening in the Indonesian Android market, that same institutional capacity is available to test it. The fix isn't demanding Google volunteer parity; it's proving the case, the way Epic — and, on a narrower theory, KPPU itself — already did.