Epic v. Google: the whole lot we’re studying dwell in Fortnite court docket

“Impairment means something is there, it’s being used, it just isn’t as good. Prevented means you shut it down.”

Epic’s professional Bernheim argues that Google’s professional Gentzkow “ignores four critical aspects of Google’s conduct,” together with:

1. Google impairs competitors with out stopping it solely

2. Google’s conduct targets comeptition because it emerges

3. Google is dominant

4. Google shares its Play income with its opponents

“When push came to shove, he talked about whether competition is prevented” quite than impaired, says Bernheim.

The upshot of that: Bernheim believes Epic doesn’t must show Google really blocked competitors solely. In his opinion (for Epic), Epic solely wants to indicate there have been no good options to Google Play and Google Play Billing. It doesn’t want to indicate there have been no options in any respect.

For instance, says Bernheim, Gentzkow introduced a chart titled “Was Fortnite Blocked?” exhibiting that income tanked on Google Play after the app was kicked off the shop, however didn’t tank for Android telephones that obtained Fortnite a special method.

But “If off-Google Play was a good substitute for Google Play, you’d see when one drops, the other goes up commensurably.” That didn’t occur: demand stayed secure exterior of Play, in line with the bar graph we simply noticed. “There’s no indication that any of the people here are substituting to off-Google Play.”