US judge grills both sides in landmark Google antitrust trial

The lawsuit against Google is the archetypal of 5 large lawsuits by the US authorities to scope trial. Photo: Kirill KUDRYAVTSEV / AFP
Source: AFP

A US justice connected Thursday pushed against the cardinal pleas of some US authorities and Google lawyers arsenic helium heard their closing arguments astatine a landmark antitrust proceedings successful Washington.

Federal Judge Amit Mehta, whose determination is not expected until aboriginal successful the year, raised his questions during 2 days of hearings that travel six months aft the decision of testimony.

The lawsuit is the archetypal of 5 large lawsuits by the US authorities to scope trial, with Meta, Amazon, Apple and a abstracted lawsuit against Google besides heading for national court.

The proceedings is the archetypal clip the US Department of Justice (DOJ) has faced a large tech institution successful tribunal since Microsoft was targeted much than 2 decades agone implicit the dominance of its Windows operating system.

The determination successful the hunt motor lawsuit volition beryllium made by Judge Mehta, who presided implicit respective months of grounds that saw Google CEO Sundar Pichai and different apical executives instrumentality the stand.

At the bosom of the government's lawsuit is the monolithic payments made by Google to Apple and different companies to support its world-leading hunt motor arsenic the default connected iPhones, web browsers and different products.

The proceedings revealed payments reaching tens of billions of dollars each twelvemonth for Google to support its premier existent property connected Apple hardware oregon the Safari and Mozilla browsers.

In 2022, Google paid Apple $20 cardinal for the default status, proceedings documents unsealed this week showed.

DOJ lawyers allege that Google achieved and perpetuated its dominance -- and strangled rivals -- done these default deals that besides expanded to Samsung and different instrumentality makers.

But Judge Mehta expressed doubts that the lawsuit had sufficiently demonstrated the antagonistic consequences indispensable to deem the deals anti-competitive according to US instrumentality and precedent.

The cardinal precedent is the landmark Microsoft case, which helped specify however a tech level can illegally maltreatment its monopoly to punish rivals.

But Mehta inferred that the Google lawsuit was precise antithetic from Microsoft's arsenic it did not impact agreements to outright exclude competing browsers and different products.

"This lawsuit is different" due to the fact that the idiosyncratic of an iPhone has the enactment to download and usage rival apps, Mehta said.

"You person to amusement existent anti-competitive effects. You person to found foreclosure archetypal and if you can't, you lose," Mehta told the US authorities lawyers.

Billions to Apple

Mehta besides poked holes successful Google's defense, wondering however immoderate rival hunt motor with a akin prime merchandise could triumph entree to the default deals if the outgo would necessitate tens of billions of dollars.

"Even if they tin conscionable connected that (quality) battlefield, they past would person to walk billions much to marque Apple whole," Mehta said.

Mehta besides focused questions connected whether hunt queries connected Amazon, Facebook oregon Expedia competed with Google, arsenic argued by the tech giant.

Including enactment connected those websites would harm the US case, which rests connected maintaining that wide search, successful which Google has implicit 80 percent of the US marketplace share, is the applicable market.

Mehta besides homed successful connected Google's contention that DuckDuckGo, the privateness focused hunt engine, was a competitor.

"You truly deliberation that DuckDuckGo is simply a rival connected Google?" Mehta asked Google's lawyer, who insisted that it was.

Lawyers from the Justice Department besides faced pointed questions, with Mehta rejecting the thought that Google's dominance has stifled innovation for search.

That would beryllium "a hard roadworthy for you to spell down", the justice warned.

Source: AFP