Judge to weigh proposed changes to Google's Android app store to prevent anticompetitive tactics

Google is confronting the latest in a succession of legal attacks on its digital empire on Thursday as a federal judge began to address anticompetitive practices in the app market for smartphones powered by its Android software. The San Francisco court hearing comes five months after a nine-person jury decided Google had turned its Play Store for Android phone apps into an illegal monopoly following a four-week trial in an antitrust case brought by Epic Games. The verdict opened an opportunity for Judge James Donato to impose sweeping restrictions and other changes on how Google manages the distribution of Android apps.