The US Department of Justice notified a federal judge Thursday that Alphabet’s Google subsidiary is illegally paying Apple Inc. and Samsung Electronics Co.
Justice Department attorney Kenneth Dentzer referred to the payments as “enormous numbers” but did not specify how much Google is spending to be the default search engine in the majority of browsers and all mobile phones in the United States.
At a hearing in Washington that marked the first significant confrontation of the case, Denetzer told Judge Amit Mehta that “Google is investing billions on defaults, knowing that people won’t change it.” Among those in attendance were the Nebraska Attorney General and senior Justice Department antitrust officials.
Hindustan Times newspaper
They buy default exclusivity because default is so important.
The Justice Department’s historic antitrust actions, which allege that Google tried to maintain its monopoly on Internet search in violation of antitrust laws, are based on Google contracts. The state attorney general is pursuing a separate antitrust lawsuit against the search giant and is currently before Mehta.
Although a formal trial is not expected to begin until next year, the first substantive hearing on the matter was held on Thursday. It was a full day tutorial during which each side presented their views on Google’s operations.
Controlling the influence of tech giants
The first important step for the federal government to verify the dominance of the internet giants was the antitrust lawsuit against Google, which was filed in the final days of the Trump administration and is still ongoing under President Joe Biden. A roundtable discussion was held on the negative effects that big technology platforms can have on the economy and children’s health Thursday at the White House.
Google’s attorney, John Schmidten, alleged that the DOJ and states misunderstand the market and focus too much on smaller competitors such as Microsoft Corp. Bing and DuckDuckGo. Instead, he claimed, Google is up against dozens of other companies, such as Amazon.com Inc. and Grubhub Inc. and ByteDance Ltd.