US says Google cheated to dominate searches – 09/12/2023 – Market

The United States argued on Tuesday (12) that Google did not play by the rules in its efforts to maintain its dominance in online search, paying US$10 billion (RS 49.46 billion) to ensure that smaller competitors would never gain traction.

“This case is about the future of the internet,” said Kenneth Dintzer, arguing on behalf of the Justice Department that Google began in 2010 to illegally maintain its monopoly.

The US Department of Justice accuses Google of paying billions of dollars annually to device makers like Apple Inc, wireless phone companies like AT&T and browser makers like Mozilla to give Google’s search engine a share of market of around 90%.

Additionally, Dintzer said Google rigged auctions for ads placed on the internet to raise prices for advertisers.

“Default settings are powerful, scale matters, and Google has illegally maintained a monopoly for more than a decade,” Dintzer said.

The consequences are that without serious competition, Google has innovated less and paid less attention to other concerns such as privacy, he said.

Dintzer also said the department found evidence that Google took steps to protect communications about payments it made to companies like Apple.

“They knew these deals crossed antitrust lines,” he said. He showed a chat in which Google CEO Sundar Pichai asked to disable the history of a certain chat.

Google’s defense is simple: It argues that its overwhelmingly high market share is not because it broke the law, but rather because it is a fast and effective search engine. Plus, it’s free.

Google’s lawyers will argue that consumers can delete the Google app from their devices or simply type Microsoft Bing, Yahoo or DuckDuckGo into a browser to use an alternative search engine.

They will also argue that consumers continue to use Google because they trust it to answer questions and are not disappointed.

Opening arguments in the trial took place in a packed federal courtroom in Washington, DC. The trial is expected to last up to ten weeks, with two phases.

In the first, Judge Amit Mehta will decide whether Google violated antitrust law in the way it manages search and search advertising. If Google is found to have violated the law, Judge Mehta will then decide how best to resolve the issue. He can simply order Google to stop practices that he considers illegal, or he can order Google to sell assets.

The government, in its complaint, called for “structural measures as necessary” but did not define them.

The legal battle has big implications for Big Tech, which has been accused of buying up or suffocating small competitors, but has protected itself against many accusations of violating antitrust law because the services the companies provide to users are free, as in the case of Google. , or cheap, as in the case of Amazon.com.

Previous major antitrust trials include that of Microsoft, filed in 1998, and that of AT&T, filed in 1974. The 1982 split of AT&T is credited with paving the way for the modern cell phone industry, while the fight with Microsoft is credited with make room for Google and others on the internet.

Translation made with the help of artificial intelligence