Google is embroiled in an antitrust case in which the tech company began squaring up against the U.S. Department of Justice.
It's argued that Google is the primary search engine amongst the public, in part, because its parent company Alphabet is paying big tech companies like Apple, Samsung, and Mozilla to place the product as the main and default search engine in their devices and browsers.
These payouts, the U.S. Department of Justice argues, are anticompetitive as they discourage other tech companies from developing their own search engine in a marketplace where a multibillion-dollar cash reserve is necessary to play the game.
As the tech giant Alphabet faces a massive antitrust lawsuit, it's the U.S. versus Google.
And slowly, revelations surround the case have presented how the company operates, and how it's using its massive resources to do what it pleases. And this time, Microsoft is giving Google another jab.
After previously saying that Google used Bing as a "bargaining chip", and that Apple could've bought Bing if it wasn't for Google, this time, it's Microsoft's CEO's turn to speak.
Satya Nadella said that Microsoft can’t compete with Google on the internet, and that Google's market share is so large the internet has basically become the “Google web.”
During more than three-and-a-half hours of testimony in Google’s antitrust trial, Nadella reportedly testified that its Bing search engine was unable to compete with Google because of the deals deals Google made with partners like Apple and Samsung to make Google the default search engine on their devices and browsers.
Nadella described Google’s deal with Apple in particular as "oligopolistic."
He also said that at one point Microsoft was willing to pay "north of 10 plus billion a year" to convince companies to make Bing the default search engine instead of Google, but the companies approached by Microsoft wouldn't give Bing a chance.
"The entire notion that users have choice, and they go from one website to another website … is completely bogus," Nadella testified.
"Defaults is the only thing that matters in changing search behavior."
"You can call it popular, but to me it's dominant," Nadella told a Google lawyer during a tense cross examination.
According to Microsoft, the company couldn't afford to invest in Bing without assurances that it could reach a significant number of users, and that Google's deal with others is making it bad for Microsoft.
Nadella revealed that Microsoft was even willing to hide its “Bing” brand on Apple devices, for the sake of securing an agreement with the iPhone maker.
Getting that default spot from Apple would be “game-changing,” Nadella said.
"Whomever they choose, they king-make."
Nadella testified on Monday as part of the U.S. government’s sweeping antitrust trial against Google.
He testified on the 14th day, and is considered the most senior tech executive yet to testify during the trial.
Google’s lawyers continually argued that others chose Google over Bing because Microsoft’s lack of ability to compete.
According to John Schmidtlein, Google’s lead litigator, he pointed out “Google” is the most searched for word on Bing, meaning that there are a lot of people who visit Bing to visit Google.
This was also clarified by Eddy Cue, Apple's Senior Vice President of Services, who said that Microsoft had an inferior product, and that it chose Google not because of the default agreements.
The U.S. versus Google trial is considered the biggest antitrust trial in more than two decades.
The Justice Department alleges that Google, which has some 90% of the search market, has abused the dominance of its ubiquitous search engine to throttle competition and innovation at the expense of consumers.
It's worth noting that Google allegedly paid Apple $18 billion to $19 billion this 2023 alone to remain Apple's search engine on Safari and on iPhones and iPads.