Google CEO Sundar Pichai Testifies in Epic Anti-trust Trial
Google CEO Sundar Pichai appeared before a federal court on Tuesday in an antitrust trial filed by infamous game “Fortnite” makers Epic Games. During a trial, Pichai denied all allegations about automatically turning off a setting to delete internal chats after one day.
Pichai appeared in court for the second time in San Fransisco to defend his company from a lawsuit filed by Epic Games. The developers of Fortnite have alleged that Google Play Store’s policies are illegally monopolizing, causing users to pay more prices artificially.
The makers of the game were trying to establish that Google and Pichai were concealing sensitive communications so it couldn’t be used against them in the trial.
Epic Games has shown the Jurors an internal documentation, which specifies to employees that ‘Anything you can write becomes subject to review in legal discovery.’ Additionally, Pichai’s chat histories were turned off, meaning the messages would be deleted.
Epic Games claims in its legal action that app store rules violate antitrust laws and have led to consumers paying inflated prices. The company seeks to make it simpler for Google Play users to use other app stores and alternative payment methods for in-app purchases.
Epic filed the lawsuit against Google in 2020 after Google removed “Fortnite” from the app store when the Cary, North Carolina, company allowed customers to pay them directly, bypassing Google’s payment systems, which charge a fee for each transaction.
