Newly unsealed documents have shown that Google used financial incentive agreements titled “Project Hug” and the “Premier Device Program” to control app developers and OEMs. Google had attempted to keep this information confidential in the current lawsuit with Epic Games, but a judge likened its request to a fox guarding the henhouse. Epic Games has filed a complaint based on the documents.
“Google’s documents show that it pushes OEMs into making Google Play the exclusive app store on the OEMs’ devices through a series of coercive carrots and sticks, including by offering significant financial incentives to those that do so, and withholding those benefits from those that do not,” the redlined complaint says .
These agreements allegedly included the Premiere Device Program, launched in 2019, to give OEMs financial incentives like 4 per cent, or more, of Google Search revenues and 3-6 per cent of Google Play spending on their devices in return for ensuring Google exclusivity and the lack of apps with APK install rights.
Source: The Register