The Justice Department’s first witness when the government kicks off the second week of the Google antitrust trial will be a Verizon executive. The trial began Tuesday with talk of the ‘future of the internet’ but quickly plunged into the weeds of commercial agreements with Android makers like Motorola and Samsung. The Justice Department argues that Google agreements with mobile carriers and others worth $10 billion annually to win powerful default positions on smartphones and elsewhere so that it would dominate search to drive up its own profits. James Kolotouros, a Google executive responsible for negotiating the company’s agreements with Android device makers and carriers, testified late in the week that Google pressed Android smartphone makers to have Google as the default search engine and other Google apps pre-installed on their machines. The antitrust fight has major implications for Big Tech, which has spent years being scrutinized by Congress and antitrust enforcers. Companies have been accused of buying or strangling small rivals but has defended itself by emphasizing that its services are free, as in the case of Google, or inexpensive, as in the case of Amazon.com. Once the opening statements about the ‘future of the internet’ were out of the way Tuesday, government lawyers spent the rest of the week wrangling over details. The government called Antonio Rangel, who teaches behavioral biology at the California Institute of Technology, to argue that people are likely to stick with defaults likes search engines or map apps if they are put on computers and mobile phones. This would show why Google would want to pay to be the default, or exclusive, to win more search queries and make higher profits advertising on them. In response, Google lawyers Schmidtlein showed data that indicated that users happily stick with Google’s search engine when pre-installed on their devices but switch away from Bing or others they like less. The government also questioned a former Google executive, Chris Barton, who was at Google from 2004 to 2011. Barton said that in its revenue-sharing deals with mobile carriers and Android smartphone makers, Google pressed for its search to be the default and exclusive. If Microsoft’s search engine Bing was the default on an Android phone, Barton said, then users would have a ‘difficult time finding or changing to Google.’
Google antitrust trial: Verizon executive to kick off second week of hearing
![Google antitrust trial: Verizon executive to kick off second week of hearing](https://theindiansystem.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/75424-google-antitrust-trial-verizon-executive-to-kick-off-second-week-of-hearing.jpg)
- September 16, 2023
TIS Staff
wp_ghjkasd_staff