And Google didn’t grant it. OnePlus would have had to give up substantial Google revenue share just to ship phones with the Epic Games Store / Fortnite launcher app needed to install the game.
“They needed permission in form of a waiver from Google to do this, yes?” Yes, answered Kolotouros. The only way to preload was to give up its Premier rev share, he agreed.
20 percent of “net basic ad revenue”
10 percent of “net optimized ad revenue”
5 percent of “net optimized Play transaction revenue”
15 percent of “net premier ad revenue”
20 percent of “net Play transaction revenue”
This is from Google and OnePlus’ RSA 3.0 agreement.
As part of an executive summary titled “We are fine-tuning Android Search Rev share (ex Samsung) to protect Google from key strategic risks),” Google CFO Ruth Porat and others were presented with this ask:
Ask: Spend $2.9B in total in 2020 (+141M to status quo) growing to $4.5B (+$600M) in 2023 across Search and Play for carriers and non-Samsung OEMs to secure platform protections for Search, and Play and critical apps protections on more devices
Google planned to specifically offer revenue to phone manufacturers to “secure Play exclusivity,” among other things:
*Offer up to 16% Play rev share to OEMs (16% to key CN OEMs, 4-8% to smaller OEMs) spending est. $35M 2020 and up to $224M in 2023 (steady state) in addition to the bonus tier of current RSA to secure Play exclusivity, Android upgrades, and distribution for critical apps (Comms suite, Pay, Photos, Gmail, Gcal, Discover suite)
And as we’re seeing now, Google went through with these deals, calling them RSA 3.0.
Tanuj Raja, Google’s global director of strategic partnerships, said it was “just his two cents” that a new Google strategy to contractually obligate Google apps might ensure “less consumer experience fragmentation” and help “stem the tide of emerging app stores,” he concluded in a July 2nd, 2014, email.
Jim Kolotouros, who’s currently on the stand, suggested it wasn’t just Raja’s two cents in a follow-up email — that it was a good idea and that Raja’s “last paragraph is the key.”
James Kolotouros, VP of Android platform partnerships, says yes. But not every phone comes with an alternative app store, he concedes.
(He’s slightly wrong, as far as we’re aware: Huawei still sells some phones outside China.)
We’re live from day 5 of Fortnite court in the Epic v. Google trial:
We’re back with a new witness: James Kolotouros, VP of Android platform partnerships. Google attorney Lauren Moskowitz is using him right away to establish one key thing: Google contractually requires every Android device manufacturer to preinstall the Google Play app store on every phone that uses its core APIs — and place it on the default homescreen and keep users from deleting it.
That contract is called a MADA: Mobile Application Distribution Agreement.
“Google requires Google Play to be on the default homescreen, as opposed to any other homescreen, because users are more likely to see it and use it than when it’s on any other homescreen, yes?”
Yes, Kolotouros agrees.
Google offered Netflix 10 percent instead of 15 percent in September 2017 — and Netflix rejected it. I have to catch a train, but I’ll explain more later.
We’ll be back Monday.
