The Fortnite maker filed antitrust suits against both tech companies – while one emerged victorious, the other was found at fault on 11 claims
  • sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
    22·
    11 months ago

    Crucially, they said, a jury rather than a judge decided the Google case, meaning the gaming company’s underdog narrative likely held more sway. Google was also repeatedly caught misbehaving. From damning internal documents to missing and deleted evidence, the company seemed to take every chance it could to present itself as the very archetype of a powerful monopolist sneakily trying to muddy the truth, experts said.

    And here are some examples of those internal documents:

    In particular, Epic repeatedly pointed to an initiative called “Project Hug” where the company paid major game developers like Activision and Nintendo millions of dollars in incentives to keep their wares in the Play store and persuade them not to create their own rival stores. The stakes were high. Activision alone was reportedly offered $360m. Epic was offered $147m to keep Fortnite on Google Play. Google documents reportedly referred to Epic in this case as a worrisome “contagion” that could cause other developers to defect.

    A jury is going to see that as bribery and not look favorably on Google.

    That setting automatically deleted messages within 24 hrs.

    Google’s sloppy handling of documents struck a nerve with Judge Donato during the trial. Around a week before the verdict, the judge slammed Google’s handling of evidence as “a frontal assault on the fair administration of justice”… Donato said Google action’s amount to “the most serious and disturbing evidence I have ever seen in my decade on the bench with respect to a party intentionally suppressing relevant evidence”.

    The judge calling out the defendent certainly doesn’t help.

    "The big difference between Apple and Google is Apple didn’t write anything down,” Sweeney said, according to CNBC. Epic Games did not immediately respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.

    That says all I need to know about the difference between these two cases.

  • PrincessEli@reddthat.comEnglish
    23·
    11 months ago

    It’s like the textbook example of why you want a jury when your case is just nonsensical appeals to emotions and bias, and a judge when you want a case of facts

        • Pratai@lemmy.caEnglish
          81·
          11 months ago

          Google is worth over one trillion dollars, genius. And for the record-

          There are FIVE publicly traded trillion dollar companies.

          • YMS@kbin.social
            51·
            11 months ago

            Besides, if you want to win a complex court case, it certainly helps to have more than a few million dollars, so you can hire more of the best lawyers and let them prepare for longer time. But at some point, more money gets useless, and the stock value of your company isn’t even money that you could spend on anything.

          • TrickDacy@lemmy.worldEnglish
            11·
            11 months ago

            TIL I’m a fucking idiot if I’m not up to date on my trillion dollar companies

            • Pratai@lemmy.caEnglish
              1·
              11 months ago

              No, you’re an idiot and a tremendous asshole if you make up shit in an argument. People read that and believe it. This is how misinformation is spread.