The US government filed the lawsuit to determine if Google acted illegally in order to maintain its dominance in online search and sections of search advertising.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai acknowledged on Monday the necessity of making its search engine the default in order to keep people loyal — a major issue in a once-in-a-generation antitrust battle in the United States centered on billions of dollars Google spent to be the default on laptops and smartphones.
Google, which began paying for default device status in 2005, watched for compliance. The corporation once raised worry to Apple that their Safari browser may convey specific requests, particularly lucrative ones.
“We were obviously doing the deal for default placement,” Pichai told reporters.
Under questioning, Pichai stated of Google’s tens of billions of dollars in annual payments for default status, “We definitely see value.” The US government filed the lawsuit to determine whether Google acted illegally in order to maintain its dominance in online search and parts of search advertising. If the government wins, the company may be forced to abandon some of its successful business practices.
Pichai, who was contacted by Google, was shown examples of times in which the company demanded revenue-sharing agreements from Apple, wireless providers, and smartphone manufacturers in exchange for setting its search engine as the default on their products during his testimony on Monday morning.
Pichai responded, “We pay for preload exclusivity on a device-by-device basis,” when the Justice Department questioned him.
Pichai was questioned by a Justice Department attorney regarding a 2007 conversation he had with other Google executives—prior to taking on the role of chief executive—about an Apple proposal to allow users to select their preferred search engine on a new iteration of the Safari browser.
At the time, a document stated that 75% of users do not modify their default settings and that “defaults have strong impact
Pichai also made a few jabs at Internet Explorer, the competitor browser from Microsoft. Pichai described the time leading up to Google’s release of its Chrome browser, which rivals Microsoft’s offering, as “kind of stagnant” in the browser market.
He went on to say, “They (Microsoft) were not that incentivizing to improve the browser,” referring to Chrome’s 2008 release as a “pretty dramatic improvement.” Due to its dominance in search, Google is also a major player in the lucrative advertising market, which is its primary source of income.
Google has maintained that users can and will change to a different search engine if they are unhappy with the default search engines. Along with maintaining the legality of the revenue-share agreements, it has made significant investments to maintain the competitiveness of its search and advertising businesses.
During Pichai’s cross-examination, the Justice Department questioned him about claims made by others that Google executives routinely erased instant messages without considering whether they should be preserved for future legal proceedings and mislabeled confidential documents as protected by attorney-client privilege.
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