(Washington) The judge overseeing the US government’s lawsuit against Google pushed lawyers for both sides to their limits Thursday during closing arguments in the historic trial over the search engine’s monopoly.
“Do you really think DuckDuckGo is a competitor to Google? » for example, asked Amit Mehta of Google’s lawyer, who had mentioned this alternative search engine, focused on data confidentiality.
This is the first of five major antitrust cases currently being investigated between the American authorities and the tech giants to lead to a trial. Lawsuits against Meta, Amazon and Apple, as well as a separate suit against Google’s advertising business, are also headed to federal courts.
The Department of Justice accuses Google of having violated competition law by signing contracts, which it considers illegal, with companies like Apple, so that its already ultra-dominant tool is installed by default on their devices and services.
The lengthy trial revealed that Google spent $26 billion last year to remain the default search engine on various smartphones and internet browsers. Most of this amount was paid to Apple.
“Real effects”
But the judge expressed doubts that the government had demonstrated that these agreements did not comply with American competition law.
To prove that practices are anti-competitive, they must have led to an increase in prices for consumers, or the stifling of innovation in the area concerned.
It seems “difficult to say that Google has not innovated sufficiently”, underlined Amit Mehta.
More than two decades ago, the lawsuit against Microsoft and the dominance of the Windows operating system helped legally define how a technology platform illegally abuses its monopoly to punish rivals.
But the judge ruled that the two cases are different, Microsoft had imposed exclusivity agreements aimed at excluding competing products.
“The iPhone user has the ability to download and use competing applications,” Mr. Mehta recalled.
“It is necessary to demonstrate the existence of real anti-competitive effects. […] If you don’t succeed, you lose,” he once again told the government lawyers.
The judge also questioned Google’s defense, questioning how a rival search engine would have the ability to pay Apple top dollar for prime position on its devices.
Define the market
“Even if they get to a good enough level of quality, they would then have to spend billions of dollars more to compensate Apple,” Mr. Mehta said.
Google also assured that searches carried out on Amazon, Facebook or even Expedia (tour operator) were in competition with its search engine, an assertion also questioned by the judge.
If activity on these websites were taken into account to define the Internet search market, this would undermine the government’s argument.
For competition authorities, the relevant market is that of general Internet user searches – Google holds 80% of this in the United States.
The hearing will continue Friday in Washington. It takes place more than six months after the end of the trial and a decision is not expected before the end of the summer or the fall.
It’s the first time U.S. competition authorities have taken on a major tech company in court since Microsoft was targeted.
During hearings last fall, Google CEO Sundar Pichai and other senior executives were called to the stand. Mr. Pichai highlighted his company’s mission, according to him: to make information “universally accessible and useful” to everyone.