Judge James Donato ordered the modification as one of numerous remedies in a dispute that Epic Games, the company behind the popular video game Fortnite, had filed against Google.
Google has announced that it will file an appeal against the ruling and request a halt to the suggested fixes.
A jury found in favor of Epic in December, citing Google’s alleged stifling of rivals by managing the payments and app distribution processes on Android phones.
Google released a statement stating that the changes will lessen competition on devices, compromise the security and privacy of users, and make it more difficult for developers to market their apps.
The decision has been welcomed by several legal experts as a significant threat to the dominance of a few large technological companies.
It illustrates that courts are not inherently hostile to asking dominant platforms to share access with rivals in the name of competition, said Rebecca Haw Allensworth, a professor at Vanderbilt Law School.
Among other remedies, the ruling asked for Google to make its portfolio of apps available to other app stores.
