Google has exploited its dominance of the internet search market to lock out competitors and smother innovation, the Department of Justice said Tuesday at the opening of the biggest U.S. antitrust trial in a quarter century.
香蕉视频直播淭his case is about the future of the internet and whether Google香蕉视频直播檚 search engine will ever face meaningful competition,香蕉视频直播� said Kenneth Dintzer, the Justice Department香蕉视频直播檚 lead litigator.
Over the next 10 weeks, federal lawyers and state attorneys general will try to prove Google rigged the market in its favor by locking in its search engine as the default choice in a plethora of places and devices. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta likely won香蕉视频直播檛 issue a ruling until early next year. If he decides Google broke the law, another trial will decide what steps should be taken to rein in the Mountain View, California-based company.
Top executives at Google and its corporate parent Alphabet Inc., as well as those from other powerful technology companies are expected to testify. Among them is likely to be Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai, who succeeded Google co-founder Larry Page four years ago. Court documents also suggest that Eddy Cue, a high ranking Apple executive, might be called to the stand.
The Justice Department filed its against Google nearly three years ago during the Trump administration, alleging that the company has used its internet search dominance to gain an unfair advantage against competitors. Government lawyers say Google protects its franchise through a form of payola, shelling out billions of dollars annually to be the default search engine on the iPhone and on web browsers such as Apple香蕉视频直播檚 Safari and Mozilla香蕉视频直播檚 Firefox.
香蕉视频直播淕oogle pays more than $10 billion per year for these privileged positions,香蕉视频直播櫹憬妒悠抵辈 Dintzer said.
香蕉视频直播淕oogle香蕉视频直播檚 contracts ensure that rivals cannot match the search quality ad monetization, especially on phones,香蕉视频直播� he said. 香蕉视频直播淭hrough this feedback loop, this wheel has been turning for more than 12 years. It always turns to Google香蕉视频直播檚 advantage.香蕉视频直播�
Google counters that it faces a wide range of competition despite commanding about 90% of the internet search market. Its rivals, the company argues, range from search engines such as Microsoft香蕉视频直播檚 Bing to websites like Amazon and Yelp, where consumers can post questions about what to buy or where to go. 香蕉视频直播淭here are lots of way users access the web other than default search engines, and people use them all the time,香蕉视频直播櫹憬妒悠抵辈 said attorney John Schmidtlein, a partner at the law firm Williams & Connolly which is representing Google.
But the more searches Google processes, the more data it collects, data that can be used to improve future searches and give it an even bigger advantage over its rivals, Dintzer said. 香蕉视频直播淯ser data is the oxygen for a search engine,香蕉视频直播� he said. Because of its market dominance, 香蕉视频直播淕oogle search and ad products are better than its rivals can hope to be.香蕉视频直播�
That is why, he said, Google pays so much for its search engine to be the default option on products from Apple and other companies.
Google 香蕉视频直播渂egan weaponizing defaults香蕉视频直播� more than 15 years ago, Dintzer said, citing an internal Google document calling its arrangements an 香蕉视频直播淎chilles Heel香蕉视频直播� for rival search engines offered by Yahoo and MSN.
He also alleged that Google strong-armed Apple into giving its search engine a default position on its devices as a condition for revenue sharing. 香蕉视频直播淭his is not a negotiation,香蕉视频直播� Dintzer said. 香蕉视频直播淭his is Google saying: Take it or leave it.香蕉视频直播�
Litigators argue the company香蕉视频直播檚 anticompetitive tactics prevented Apple from developing a search engine of its own.
And Dintzer said Google deleted documents to keep them out of court proceedings and sought to hide others under attorney-client privilege.
香蕉视频直播淭hey destroyed documents for years,香蕉视频直播櫹憬妒悠抵辈 Dintzer said. 香蕉视频直播淭hey turned history off, your honor, so they could rewrite it in this court.香蕉视频直播櫹憬妒悠抵辈
While questioning Google chief economist Hal Varian 香蕉视频直播� the trial香蕉视频直播檚 first witness 香蕉视频直播� Dintzer produced a July 2003 memo in which Varian urged Google employees to be cautious about how they discussed competition with Microsoft, lest they raise antitrust concerns. 香蕉视频直播淲e should be careful about what we say in both public and private,香蕉视频直播櫹憬妒悠抵辈 Varian wrote. References to 香蕉视频直播渃utting off their air supply香蕉视频直播櫹憬妒悠抵辈 and similar comments, for instance, 香蕉视频直播渟hould be avoided.香蕉视频直播櫹憬妒悠抵辈
From Google香蕉视频直播檚 perspective, perpetual improvements to its search engine explain why people almost reflexively keep coming back to it, a habit that long ago made 香蕉视频直播淕oogling香蕉视频直播� synonymous with looking things up on the internet. Schmidtlein said Google香蕉视频直播檚 tweaks simply made its search better than key rival Bing. 香蕉视频直播淎t every critical juncture,香蕉视频直播� he said, 香蕉视频直播渢hey were beaten in the market.香蕉视频直播�
The trial begins just a couple weeks after the 25th anniversary of the first investment in Google 香蕉视频直播� a $100,000 check written by Sun Microsystems co-founder Andy Bechtolsheim that enabled Page and Sergey Brin to set up shop in a Silicon Valley garage.
Today, Google香蕉视频直播檚 corporate parent, Alphabet, is worth $1.7 trillion and employs 182,000 people, with most of the money coming from $224 billion in annual ad sales flowing through a network of digital services anchored by a search engine that fields billions of queries a day.
The Justice Department香蕉视频直播檚 antitrust case echoes the one it filed against Microsoft in 1998. Regulators then accused Microsoft of forcing computer makers that relied on its dominant Windows operating system to also feature Microsoft香蕉视频直播檚 Internet Explorer 香蕉视频直播� just as the internet was starting to go mainstream. That bundling practice crushed competition from the once-popular browser Netscape.
Several members of the Justice Department香蕉视频直播檚 team in the Google case 香蕉视频直播� including Dintzer 香蕉视频直播� also worked on the Microsoft investigation.
Google could be hobbled if the trial ends in concessions that undercut its power. One possibility is that the company could be forced to stop paying Apple and other companies to make Google the default search engine on smartphones and computers.
Or the legal battle could cause Google to lose focus. That香蕉视频直播檚 what happened to Microsoft after its antitrust showdown with the Justice Department. Distracted, the software giant struggled to adapt to the impact of internet search and smartphones. Google capitalized on that distraction to leap from
READ ALSO:
