Sean Hollister

Today, she says, “I would disagree with the characterization that I didn’t want to have a fair developer ecosystem.” But after seeing her old deposition, she clarifies, “My job wasn’t to ensure fairness.” She says it was to help developers create great apps and make sure they follow Google’s policies.

She’s in a corner, that’s for sure — the one Epic just painted her into.

“We considered that, yes,” she says on the stand. It’s not clear if Google went through with it.

Epic lawyer John Hueston is repeatedly trying to drive home that Google preferenced its own apps, including YouTube and YouTube Music.

Google has already conceded it didn’t migrate YouTube to Google Play Billing for many years after it started asking developers to switch.

“Users DO know what the Play Store is and they actually use it... but only for installs,” she wrote in bold. “But they don’t use the play store for any app discovery at all.”

“Play Store offers little value for app discovery,” she repeated later. Based on what I’m seeing, I expect Google will argue her conversations with colleagues were based on anecdotal reports (from friends, family, individual users).

The email goes on, but I didn’t have time to copy down the rest.

If you’re still playing our bingo, mark “Google Play Billing” and “IAP” on your card.

“The CEO, appropriately in my view, said ask Mr. Walker,” says the judge. But the buck stops with Walker, he suggested.

Yesterday, Judge Donato officially ordered Google to do this: “Google is directed to provide the Court with all copies of the litigation holds issued in this case by November 15, 2023.”

There may also be video deposition from Amazon midday, Epic says. No mention of original Android boss Andy Rubin.

Judge James Donato is going over logistics now, trying to make sure the trial will run on time. Epic and Google have a disagreement over Google Play’s net profit margin. “Doing it 100 percent your way, what is the net profit margin?” the judge asked Google.

A man from Google’s team immediately pulled Google lead attorney Glenn Pomerantz aside, whispered in his ear, and then Google deflected the question. “They’re relying on numbers and margins that clearly don’t count any Android costs,” said Pomerantz.

We’ll hear from expert witnesses on Monday and Tuesday.

💰 Google $147M offer to Epic might not have needed CEO approval; “Google CEO approval is required if total commercial commitment value exceeds $150M, and audit committee required,” I spotted on a slide in the Business Council presentation.

🖋️ It also read “Approval by Sridhar Ramaswamy and Philipp Schindler required.” Those would have been Google’s heads of advertising, commerce, and business.

💪 An imposing man (bodyguard?) walked Sundar Pichai to the bathroom.

Lockheimer basically shrugged.

Epic tried to suggest the folding phones Lockheimer toyed with on the stand were just hardware innovation, not software. Lockheimer (rightly, based on what I know of Android’s many changes to support foldables) said no.

Epic asked Lockheimer which came first: tipping off reporters, or the bug report going live? It seems pretty clear from evidence we’ve seen that the bug report went live first, even if Google planned it that way.