It was apparently verified by a company executive while giving testimony during the ongoing trial between Epic and Google that Google allowed Spotify to avoid paying the necessary Play Store fees that the company imposes. According to a story by The Verge, a confidential agreement with the streaming behemoth has been made public. The agreement reveals that Spotify was granted permission to process its own payments on the service without having to pay Google a commission. During the current legal dispute with Epic Games, the search giant earlier attempted to conceal the specifics of its agreement with Spotify. Epic Games is the company that is responsible for the game Fortnite.
The president of partnership at Google, Don Harrison, testified during the ongoing litigation between Epic and Google that Spotify did not pay any fees to the firm when it processed consumer payments on its own. This is according to the report by The Verge. Customers who paid Spotify using Google’s in-app billing service were eligible to get a four percent reward from the platform whenever they made that choice.
Google takes a 15 percent cut of all app purchases and in-app purchases from the majority of publishers on its platform. However, this percentage can be reduced in South Korea, India, and 35 other countries where the company provides developers an alternative known as user choice billing, which decreases the commission by 4 percent.
According to the story, the official from Google testified that in addition to the popularity of the music streaming platform on Android, the search giant and Spotify had reached an agreement on a “success fund” that would require each company to contribute fifty million dollars, which is equivalent to almost four hundred and forty crore rupees.
Although it is possible that Spotify is receiving preferential treatment from Google, the corporation is still responsible for paying the in-app purchase fee on Apple’s App Store. This commission can reach up to thirty percent of each transaction. It is important to note that this is the case. Users of the streaming service are unable to purchase a subscription using the Spotify app for iOS, just like they are unable to do so with Netflix and a great number of other services.
There is not enough time to determine whether or not these findings will have an effect on the case that Epic Games is bringing against Google. The game publisher filed a lawsuit against both Apple and Google, alleging that the two companies engaged in antitrust tactics. These actions include restricting the use of alternative billing systems and alternative app stores on iOS and Android, respectively. A number of fascinating information on Google and other companies has been brought to light as a result of the trial. One of these details is a multibillion-dollar agreement with Samsung to make the Play Store, Assistant, and Search applications the default settings on Galaxy handsets.
At the beginning of this year, the trial between Epic and Apple came to a conclusion when the Ninth Circuit Court upheld a judgment from 2021 that determined the iPhone manufacturer’s prohibition on competing app stores on iOS did not violate antitrust law in the United States. Only one of Apple’s claims was unsuccessful during the trial; the company would have to grant permission to developers to incorporate links to third-party payment systems into their applications. Apple has requested the Supreme Court of the United States to overturn the judgment of the ninth circuit court that blocked its anti-steering regulations, while Epic has filed an appeal with the Supreme Court challenging the verdict.