Unlockd wins injunction against Google in English courts
Australian adtech company Unlockd has been granted an injunction preventing Google from dropping the startup’s products from its AdMob service.
Google had threatened to suspend the company from its AdMob mobile advertising platform and from the Google Play Store, a move which would have crippled Unlockd and caused the startup to postpone its planned IPO.
The service, which displays ads on users’ smartphone lock screens in return for loyalty rewards, has also threatened to complain about Google’s conduct to US, UK, European and Australian competition regulators.
Since launching in 2015, the company has raised $68m from investors including Lachlan Murdoch, former Seven Group CEO Peter Gammell and Catch of the Day founders Hezi and Gabby Leibovich.
Co-founder Matt Berriman stepped down as CEO in February following mental health issues but remains active in the company as an executive director.
When Unlockd announced it would be taking action against Google last month, Berriman told Mumbrella: “We have received formal written approval from Google on two separate occasions validating Unlockd’s app for use with AdMob, and Google has also acknowledged that the app is consistent with their policies.”
In a media statement issued this morning, Unlockd said:
Unlockd is pleased to confirm that the English High Court has today granted an interim injunction to prevent Google from disabling AdMob-generated advertising content and removing Unlockd apps from the Google Play Store in respect of our UK business. The Court has also accepted the need for an expedited trial date, to be handed down on Monday in a follow-up hearing, with an anticipated date of either end of July or September.
Despite this positive ruling, the limited scope of the interim injunction is disappointing and we will continue to explore our legal options to protect our interests fully, both in the UK and globally. However, we would not expect Google to take unilateral action against our other businesses in Australia and the United States in circumstances where the Court has made a clear order in the UK preventing such action.
The Court’s decision to grant an interim injunction and order an expedited trial date validates our strong stand to protect our business, our partners and 330,000 active users to whom this threat could cause irreparable harm and disruption.
Unlockd has created a revolutionary platform that is fundamentally changing the way that people interact with the world of advertising, by returning value to users in exchange for their attention in a way that Google and the other big tech companies do not. We are confident that we will demonstrate at trial that our case represents a further example of anti-competitive conduct on the part of Google, toward innovative start-ups such as ourselves that might pose a future threat to their dominance in the market.
Mumbrella has contacted Google for comment.
What are the terms of the injunction? (“the limited scope of the interim injunction is disappointing”)
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It’s a poorly conceived ad-UX and 100% this business drown. Their model based with invasive ads on your lock screen is never going to cut it these days.
I’m just amazed they’ve made it this far.
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Despite the positive spin, it’s not exactly a home-run is it? I would think this is scary times for the Unlockd crew and their investors…some good people have left the business over the last 6 months, and it’s interesting that the CEO is nowhere to be seen in all of this…
Good luck to them, I feel a pivot coming, fast….
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