Welcome to the Tech Mem Ride Home for Thursday, July 8th, 2021. I'm Brian McCullough today.

State Attorneys General file an antitrust suit against Google, but why them first?

Visa wants you to spend crypto via their platform. FinTech leads a record first half of the year

for VC raises, and if payment for order flow were nixed by the SEC what

would that do to Robin Hood? Here's what you missed today in the world of tech.

Attorneys general from 36 states and the District of Columbia have filed an antitrust

lawsuit against Google targeting the Play Store practice of forcing

Devs to use Google's billing system and charging

Devs a commission for doing so, quoting Politico. In addition to Wednesday's suit

Google also faces a suit that the Justice Department and 14 states filed in October, focused on Google's efforts to dominate the mobile search market.

One from 38 states and territories filed in December also focused on search and a

third suit by 15 states and territories related to Google's power over the advertising

technology.

In a blog post, Google dismissed the suit as meritless, saying the changes the plaintiff's demand

for its Google Play Store risk, quote, raising costs for small developers, impeding their ability to innovate and compete,

and making apps across the Android ecosystem less secure for consumers, end quote.

This lawsuit isn't about helping the little guy or protecting consumers, the company said,

it's about boosting a handful of major app developers who want the benefits of Google Play without paying for it, end quote.

The case mirrors one filed against Google by Fortnightemaker Epic Games last August and a barrage of antitrust class actions filed on behalf of app developers and consumers who allege Google's policies have led to higher prices. The bipartisan group of

State Attorneys General filed Wednesday's case in the same court as those

other App Store suits. It will be heard by the same judge James Donato, an Obama appointee who has scheduled a trial in

epic suit against Google for April 2022.

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