Google Play Deal Rebuke Puts Settling Defendants on Notice

A federal judge’s rejection of a $700 million settlement brokered by Alphabet Inc.‘s Google and state attorneys general over the Google Play app gives warning to defendants hammering out similar class action deals.

Judge James Donato of the US District Court for the Northern District of California last week was severe in his rebuke of a deal with US states and consumers who claimed the tech company’s Google Play app store abuses its market power, calling the deal “a bag of not great.” He raised particular concerns about how little the settlement will pay out to 127 million consumers, ...