BBC reports that Google has lost a court battle to Epic Games, the creator of the hit Fortnite series, and been declared an illegal monopoly by a jury that said the tech giant is working to eliminate competitors in various ways.

The ruling comes after Google worked to undercut competing app stores to its Google Play platform by cooperating anti-competitively with mobile device makers and paying competing programmers to stop their attempts to create alternatives.

Epic Games sued after Google refused to allow app makers to collect payment for or through their apps without paying a percentage of the income to Google. Epic Games announced that it would not pay Google or Apple any further fees, and the game was removed from both companies' app stores.

In response, Epic Games sued both companies for running an illegal monopoly.

Jurors found for Epic on all counts, a court filing showed, after more than a month of trial in Epic's lawsuit, which accused Google of taking action to quash competitors and charge unduly high fees of up to 30% to app developers. The court in January will begin work on what remedies to implement.

If Justice James Donato rules in accordance with the jury, Google will be required to allow apps and users to make purchases through its apps without paying a fee to Google, which will allow game developers to sell billions of dollars of in-game transactions without paying Google for the privilege.

Declaring Google an illegal monopoly in the mobile application world could have far-reaching implications for the tech giant. The decision is expected to allow numerous programmers to offer their apps without Google's broker fees, and in doing so cause Google noticeable losses.

Google's main sources of income, data mining and ad space, is also being targeted for lawsuits over the invasion of privacy of several different kinds under the laws of multiple countries, which has limited the tech giant's options for selling the personal data of its users.