Uncovering the Truth: Sundar Pichai’s Testimony in Epic Battle of Google Play vs. Fortnite!

Google CEO Sundar Pichai appeared in court for the second time in two weeks today to address the antitrust lawsuit filed by Epic Games, the publisher of Fortnite. Epic Games alleges that Google’s monopolistic policies in the Google Play store create obstacles for third-party app developers, as the marketplace has complete control over the Android ecosystem. Pichai spent approximately 90 minutes during the testimony discussing the business practices of the Google Play store and Google’s overall policies. Here are the top 10 highlights from his testimony.

Sundar Pichai takes a stand on Google Play’s antitrust lawsuit

1. Pichai admitted to using fake legal privilege by marking documents as “attorney-client privilege” even though he did not seek any legal advice. He said he did it to protect the documents from being emailed to people who weren’t part of the conversation. Attorney-client privilege requires that a person can choose not to share certain information with people because they were legally protected because they were involved in a lawsuit. Pichai did it when there was no such need, just to avoid divulging information.

2. Pichai was grilled over time when he asked to turn off history during an email conversation, meaning the conversation would be deleted after 24 hours. The connection that was found was that Google had a policy in informal discussions, and an Epic lawyer believed it extended to cases where the facts were relevant to ongoing litigation, such as when Epic Games sued Google in 2020 over Google Play’s policies.

The lawyer questioned Pichai about whether employees were following the rules, which said the chats did not eliminate legal retention requirements. He said: “I expect employees to follow these guidelines.” Later, when accused of deleting such conversations himself, he said he did not remember it and it “must have been a glitch”.

3. Epic’s lawyer presented a typed summary of a meeting between Google’s CEO and other Android executives in 2013 in which he argued that the company might need to “go back to the rules” because Google wasn’t an “upstart open source operating system” to avoid the nightmare. scenario if we “lose control of Android”. This was done to show that Pichai, who was also the head of the Android division at the time, was trying to make it difficult for people outside of Google to exist in the ecosystem.

4. “Android was the first to design bigger phones, now it’s the first to design foldable phones…all these innovations are attracting developers to it,” said Pichai when asked how Google is helping the Android ecosystem compete with Apple.

5. When asked if OEMs would keep Google Play on the home screen unless Google is contractually obligated, Pichai said, “It might affect their sales, so I don’t think they would.” Earlier, he gave a different answer, saying, “I am, yes.”

6. Google’s CEO revealed that it will share 36 percent of mobile search revenue with Apple for default iPhone search. This sum goes up to 18 billion dollars a year.

7. Asked if sending warnings from unknown sources on third-party app downloads could create friction for those who want to download apps from the site, Pichai said, “Friction can be useful, but yes.”

8. No distinction between URLs: Pichai responded that when asked if a user downloads an app from Amazon’s app store to “I’ll-steal-your-info.com” is distinguished. We don’t distinguish between URLs.”

9. Pichai confirmed that Google Play was “one of the most profitable companies” in the world, noting an operating profit of 65 percent on $4.4 billion in operating profit in the first half of 2020.

10. When asked if even a single OEM sells a phone that has not signed a Mobile Application Distribution Agreement (MADA) with Google, which mandates smartphones to pre-install Google Play and keep it on the home screen without users accessing it. remove it, Pichai acknowledged, adding that some have tried it before. When Epic’s lawyer pointed out that they tried and failed, Pichai said, “Because consumers appreciate what we’re offering with MADA.”