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Google has offered a glimpse of its closing arguments to a DC federal judge as it seeks to convince the court that it is not operating an unlawful monopoly in search.
The company filed a Unsealed version of its post-trial brief on Friday in its fight against the US Justice Department over its discovery distribution agreements. The DOJ has argued that Google used exclusionary contracts with phone manufacturers and web browser operators to make it harder for other search engines to compete. Brief description of the agencyThe lawsuit, filed later in the day with a coalition of states, argues that Google used its monopoly power to “destabilize the ecosystem of what should otherwise be a vibrant and competitive industry.”
In a brief filed Friday, Google said the trial evidence “conclusively” shows that “Google is the highest quality, most popular search engine in the United States, with the highest general search engine advertising monetization. The evidence showed additional effectively established that partners who choose to contract with Google to preload Google Search as the default search engine overwhelmingly prefer Google over any other search engine.”
The plaintiffs’ brief argues, “Google is not focused on spending its money, attention, and time on improving general search and search advertising because it is not necessary to do so,” claiming the result would be costs to advertisers. There is an increase in users and less market innovation. “Consumers have fewer choices, miss out on better products, and sacrifice their privacy – at a higher price to advertisers – because there are no meaningful alternatives to Google.”
Witnesses in the trial also included executives who run Google search competitors. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella And Gabriel Weinberg, CEO of DuckDuckGo, He explained how Google’s perceived capture of the market prevented them from achieving the necessary search volume that could have helped them become a stronger alternative.
Google says the DOJ and the group of states suing it “seek to punish Google and specifically disable it from competing to win these revenue share agreements.” Google argues that the result will prop up low-quality search engines with the hope that they will rise to the challenge, “despite a long track record of failing to achieve such success in the past, even That’s despite winning the search default or otherwise achieving search query scale through agreements with other search engines, such as the 2009 Microsoft-Yahoo agreement.
Google further says, “This result is contrary to US antitrust law.” “Punishing a successful firm that has outcompeted its competitors for the benefit of consumers hurts competition, not the other way around.”
Closing arguments in the case are expected to take place in May after a multi-week hearing ending in late 2023.
UPDATE 6:55PM ET: Added news about plaintiff’s post-trial brief after its filing.
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