Why is the US suing Google for antitrust violations?

tech.hindustantimes.com:

The U.S. Justice Department and a coalition of state attorneys general on Tuesday will begin a blockbuster antitrust trial in Washington, alleging that Alphabet's Google unlawfully abused its dominance in the search-engine market to maintain monopoly power.

Here is an explainer on the key issues in the case.

The U.S. and its state allies contend Google unlawfully stifled competition by paying billions of dollars to Apple and other business partners to ensure its search engine would be the default on most phones and web browsers.

The government's lawsuit, filed in 2020 in federal court, alleges these deals were intended by Google to be "exclusionary," denying rivals access to search queries and clicks, and allowing Google to entrench its market dominance.

Google has grabbed a 90% market share in search in the U.S. in recent years, according to government estimates. The government said the browser agreements — steering billions of web queries to Google every day — have resulted in less choice for consumers and less innovation.

Google sees things much differently. The company, which maintains that it did not violate antitrust law, said in a January court filing that its browser agreements were "legitimate competition" and not "illicit exclusion."

The agreements did not prevent rivals from developing their own search engines or stop companies such as Apple and Mozilla from promoting them, Google argues.

Rather, the makers of phones and web browsers set Google search as their default because they wanted to deliver the "highest quality" experience for their customers, Google claimed in its January filing.

Google also claims mobile users can switch easily if they want to use another search engine.

It's generally not illegal for a