San Francisco  -  A US judge on Monday ordered Google to open its Android smartphone operating system to rival app stores, in a fresh legal setback for the tech giant. The order is the result of Google’s defeat in an antitrust case brought by Fortnite-maker Epic Games, where a California jury decided that Google wields illegal monopoly power through its Android Play store. The San Francisco jury in December took just a few hours to decide against Google, finding that the company had embarked on various illegal strategies to maintain its app store monopoly on Android phones. The order, which Google is appealing, follows a similar setback in August when a different judge found that Google’s world-leading search engine was also an illegal monopoly. Google is also facing an antitrust lawsuit in a third federal case in Virginia over its dominance of online advertising. Under the Epic Games order, for the next three years Google will be prohibited from engaging in several practices that were deemed anticompetitive by the jury in the landmark case. These prohibitions include revenue sharing with potential competitors and requirements that developers launch apps exclusively on the Play Store. The judge has also ordered the creation of a three-person Technical Committee to oversee the implementation of the changes and resolve any disputes that may arise. This injunction represents a significant challenge to Google’s dominance in the Android app ecosystem and could reshape the mobile app landscape in the coming years. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney urged companies to seize this opportunity “to build a vibrant and competitive Android ecosystem with such critical mass that Google can’t stop it.” He also underlined that the changes would only be applicable in the US, but pledged that “the legal and regulatory battle will continue around the world.”