Google Rejected Play Store Fee Changes Due to Impact on Revenue, Epic Lawsuit Shows
- ‘Project Everest’ documents released in Epic antitrust suit
- Google staff says it ‘defend the status quo for a few months’
Google’s Play Store app.
Photographer: Justin Chin/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Alphabet Inc.’s Google considered changing its app store pricing model to circumvent a regulatory crackdown, but abandoned a proposal to charge a set fee per app after it became clear that could cost the company billions of dollars, according to documents released late Thursday.
Google created Project Everest in 2021 to reconsider the Play Store billing model, according to the documents, which were released as part of an antitrust suit by Epic Games Inc. Google last week lost the suit brought by the maker of Fortnite when a federal jury found the tech giant abused its monopoly power over the app store.