Google’s Pichai Defends Search Dominance as Rivals Circle
Alphabet Inc.'s Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai sought to portray Google's position as the dominant internet search engine as constantly challenged by the whims of rivals such as Apple Inc., as he took the witness stand Monday to defend his company against the US government's antitrust charges.
The Justice Department argues that by paying as much as $26 billion in 2021 to be the default on mobile phones, PCs and other devices, Google has unfairly choked off potential competitors such as Microsoft Corp. and DuckDuckGo. Even Apple has opted not to create its own search engine or give priority to other options because of the lucrative, multibillion-dollar deal it has with Google, the government has argued. G
Despite having about 90% of the market for search, Google has tried to show over the course of seven weeks that it's increasingly at the mercy of new ways people are looking for information online. Previous Google witnesses have described how people now are likely to look for items to buy on TikTok or Amazon.com Inc. or travel advice on Expedia Group Inc.
In his first appearance at the trial, Pichai said when Google's longtime contract with Apple was renegotiated in 2016, he wanted to make sure that the default was “preserved” as it had been for years. He was concerned Apple might otherwise start to send queries from its Safari web browser to Amazon or others “and do additional deals,” for instance, instead of routing the query through Google search.
An email from 2018, written ahead of a meeting between Pichai and Apple CEO Tim Cook and presented at the trial, showed that Google was concerned about Apple's “query cannibalization.”
Apple's default agreement with Google is by far the most significant because of the
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