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Google has reached the halfway point of its antitrust case and will go on the defense. Attempting to convince judge Amit Mehta and the court that it isn’t running an illegal monopoly with online search. Since the beginning of this case back in September the prosecution has alleged Google has engaged in monopolistic practices to maintain its dominance in the online search market.
A big part of that has centered on Google’s exclusive deals to companies like Apple. Wherein Google paid Apple large sums of money to make Google the default search engine on its iPhones and other devices that use the Safari browser. Google’s rivals, including Microsoft and DuckDuckGo have issued statements that these deals make it nearly impossible to reach Google’s level of market share. Noting that Google makes it unnecessarily difficult to change the default to something else.
Google of course has asserted that users have a choice on what to use. And that they choose to use Google because they feel it’s better. Going forward, Google will present its defense that tries to back up these statements.
Google will present its defense in the antitrust case next week
Today marks the final day for the prosecution to showcase its claims that Google is running a monopoly. But Google isn’t set to give its defense until next week. With that part of the trial beginning on October 26. Which is next Thursday. Once the defense starts, the trial will continue for another five weeks. Though judge Mehta won’t make a final decision until sometime in 2024. The Justice Department can then make appeals if Google wins the case and Google will be able to do the same. Which means things aren’t likely to be finalized for quite some time. Especially with a monumental case like this one.
The defense will likely revolve around many of the arguments Google has made so far. But there have been some revelations that could be hard to overcome. Emails from now CEO Sundar Pichai from back in 2007 referred to being the only search option on Apple devices as “bad optics.”
Ex employees also described Google search as a benevolent dictatorship that forces advertisers to stomach costly changes. As Bloomberg notes, Google has some of its most difficult challenges in this case ahead of it.