Google offered Netflix a sweetheart deal to pay just 10 percent on Google Play

Illustration by Nick Barclay / The Verge

Spotify isn't the only one that negotiated with Google for special treatment. Netflix did, too.

In 2017, Google offered Netflix a special discounted rate of 10 percent of its in-app payments on Android — meaning Netflix could keep 90 percent of the money — according to documents and testimony in the Epic v. Google trial.

Today, you can’t subscribe to Netflix from inside the Netflix app on Android, but that wasn’t always the case. Netflix previously paid Google 15 percent to do that, Netflix VP of business development Paul Perryman said in a 2022 video deposition that aired in the courtroom on Thursday.

Once upon a time, when Netflix could offer its own method of payment, it paid closer to three percent, he said. Google eventually cut...

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