The RCS Universal Profile is a publicly available standard, but there is no FOSS client stack that implements the standard. Google restricts RCS support on Android to the proprietary Google Messages instead of making it part of the Android Open Source Project. Apple Messages and iOS are also proprietary.
The EU should use the Digital Markets Act to force Google and Apple to allow competing RCS clients on Android and iOS.
Only Google is claiming that the damages are less than $1 million. You’re taking Google’s self-interested claim as fact while overlooking Google’s financial motivation to pay less than what they owe, which a jury could find to be in the hundreds of millions. For obvious reasons, court judgments aren’t decided by the defendants.
Based on the statements Google previously made, Google most likely sent a check for a fraction of the damages that a jury could find them liable for.
It’s unclear just how big the check was. The court filing redacted key figures to protect Google’s trade secrets. But Google claimed that testimony from US experts “shrank” the damages estimate “considerably” from initial estimates between $100 million and $300 million, suggesting that the current damages estimate is “substantially less” than what the US has paid so far in expert fees to reach those estimates.
According to Reuters, Google has not disclosed “the size of its payment” but has said that “after months of discovery, the Justice Department could only point to estimated damages of less than $1 million.”
A fine of less than $1 million is absolutely not what anyone except Google is asking for.
Direct link to PDF of RCS Universal Profile specification
This PDF link can be found on a search engine. You can also fill out the form with fake information and a throwaway email to get the link, though you don’t have to.