Google is spending billions of dollars to illegally keep its search engine the default service on millions of devices, according to US antitrust authorities, which have launched a lawsuit against the company and its tech market practices. .
“Google spends billions on breaches, knowing that people will change them. They are buying the exclusivity because the defaults are so important,” US Justice Department attorney Kenneth Dintzer told Judge Amit Mehta during an initial hearing in Washington into an antitrust lawsuit against the company.
The lawyer did not give an exact number, but described them as “large sums” and argued that the company has tried to maintain its dominance in online searches despite violating antitrust laws. Although the statement was made during an initial hearing, the formal trial is not expected to start until next year.
It is worth mentioning that in addition to the Department of Justice, the attorneys general of different states also initiated a parallel lawsuit against the technological giant, which is in charge of the same judge.
John Schmidtlein, a lawyer for Google, said that both the Justice Department and the states misunderstand the market and focus too much on small search engines, such as Bing; however, they do have competition in the industry with TikTok, Meta, or Amazon, where people also search for information.
“You don’t have to go to Google to shop on Amazon. You don’t have to go to Google to buy plane tickets on Expedia. Just because Google doesn’t face the same competition on every query doesn’t mean the company doesn’t face stiff competition,” Schmidtlein said.
However, Dintzer focused on the mechanics of the search engine and how contracts with companies have reduced competition. He even said that he has agreements with Apple, Samsung or Motorola so that his search engine is the default on these devices.
“The reason they partnered with Google isn’t because they have to, it’s because they want to,” Schmidtlein argued, adding that Google succeeded “by doing something incredibly valuable. Competition is not illegal.
According to information from the data analysis firm, Statcounter, in the month of August of this year it was shown that the Google search engine is ahead by a large margin, as it registered 92% of the market share Worldwide.
This lawsuit against Google was filed in October 2020 and was one of the efforts of the Trump administration to control the power of technology companies, which have continued in the government of Joe Biden.
In this regard, this Thursday the White House presented six principles to reform large technology companies, which received bipartisan support for being “clear rules to ensure that small and medium-sized companies can compete on equal terms.”
The antitrust legislation is intended to control the four technology giants in the United States: Apple, Alphabet, Amazon and Meta, which will be prevented, among other issues, from favoring their own businesses to the detriment of smaller ones.
