What is Google trying to hide in its deal with Spotify?

theverge.com:

By Sean Hollister, a senior editor and founding member of The Verge who covers gadgets, games, and toys. He spent 15 years editing the likes of CNET, Gizmodo, and Engadget.

Is there something Google doesn’t want the world to know about its deal with Spotify? That’s what Google attorney Glenn Pomerantz suggested in Fortnite court this morning. Pomerantz argued that the court should seal portions of an upcoming exhibit revealing Google’s User Choice Billing agreement with Spotify — which lets Spotify use its own payment system for subscriptions while still giving Google a cut.

“Disclosure of the Spotify deal would be very, very detrimental for the negotiation we’d be having with those other parties,” Pomerantz told Judge James Donato, who is overseeing the Epic v. Google antitrust case. Pomerantz didn’t specify who the other parties were by name. He also said he was all right with “two numbers” being presented to the jury, but not with them being revealed aloud.

In 2020, as Epic began its fight against the “Apple tax” and “Google tax” on their respective app stores, it had a major ally: Spotify. Spotify was Epic’s single-biggest partner in the Coalition for App Fairness lobbying group. But then, in 2022, it partnered with Google as part of a limited pilot program called “User Choice Billing,” letting it bypass Google’s full fee on Android.

The future of Google’s app store is at stake in a lawsuit by Fortnite publisher Epic Games. Epic sued Google in 2020 after a fight over in-app purchase fees, claiming the Android operating system’s Google Play Store constituted an unlawful monopoly — while Google says its demands would damage Android’s ability to offer a secure user experience and compete with Apple’s iOS.

Google made it