The Justice Department and a group of 35 states sued Google in 2020 for allegedly using anticompetitive tactics to monopolize online search. The trial has concluded and closing arguments are underway.
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The Justice Department and a group of 35 states sued Google in 2020 for allegedly using anticompetitive tactics to monopolize online search. The trial is over and closing arguments are underway.
Spencer Platt/Getty Images
The historic monopoly trial between the US Department of Justice and Google comes to a close this week. After a five-month hiatus, both sides will present closing arguments starting Thursday in an effort to convince the federal judge why they should win the case.
The Justice Department accused Google of illegally abusing its monopoly power to control the search engine industry, leading to competitors being sidelined and customers being harmed by benefiting from a lower quality experience. Google, for its part, has argued that its search engine is simply the best, which is why it is the most popular, not because of its business dealings.
It is the first high-profile monopoly case to go to trial among a handful of companies brought by the U.S. government against technology companies in recent years. The United States has also sued Amazon, Apple and Facebook parent Meta over business practices it says harm both competitors and consumers.
How the judge rules in this case could have far-reaching effects on how people use and interact with the Internet.
During last fall’s trial, the two sides battled it out in court for ten weeks. Silicon Valley executives including Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella testified, while numerous internal documents were presented. Arguments erupted over redacted evidence, closed-door testimony and the alleged destruction of employee chat logs.
“There’s a broader debate about whether antitrust laws measure up to the big tech world we live in now,” says Sam Weinstein, a former Justice Department antitrust lawyer and now a professor at the Cardozo School of Law. “And so that’s putting it to the test.”
The Justice Department filed its first complaint against Google in 2020. A group of 35 states, along with Guam, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia, then filed a nearly identical complaint. Both suits were heard by Judge Amit Mehta during the trial, which concluded in November.
Google paid $26.3 billion in 2021 alone to be the default search engine on phones and web browsers
The Justice Department’s case centered on allegations that Google illegally orchestrated its business dealings with device makers, like Apple and Samsung, and web browser companies, like Mozilla, which operates Firefox.
During the trial, the government showed that Google paid billions of dollars each year for exclusive deals with these companies. In 2021, it spent a total of $26.3 billion to ensure it was the default search engine on phones and web browsers, according to testimony. Apple, which struck the most lucrative deal, received around $18 billion in 2021, according to the New York Times.
“Google has illegally maintained a monopoly for more than a decade,” Kenneth Dintzer, the Justice Department’s lead attorney, said in opening statements for the trial. “If Google sets the rules, it will always be to its advantage.”
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, now worth more than $2 trillion, controls about 90 percent of the U.S. search engine market. For its defense, the company has assembled a massive legal team and brought in outside law firms to help make its case.
Much of the company’s case revolves around its claims that people love Google Search and that’s why they use it. And, according to Google, if people want to change the default search engine on their devices, they can with just a few clicks.
“Users today have more search options and more ways to access information online than ever before,” Google lead attorney John Schmidtlein said in filings. opening of the trial.
Even Microsoft CEO Says It Can’t Compete With Google
During the trial, the Justice Department called dozens of witnesses to testify, including experts, psychologists and top executives from Apple, Microsoft and Google.
When Microsoft CEO Nadella spoke, he said he had been trying for years to get Apple to set Microsoft’s Bing search engine as the default search engine on iPhones and iPads. He added, however, that even a company as big as Microsoft couldn’t compete.
Executives of other smaller search engines, like DuckDuckGo and Neeva, also testified that Google’s exclusive deals ended their potential to gain market share. Gabriel Weinberg, CEO of DuckDuckGo, said his privacy-focused search engine company tried tirelessly to negotiate deals with device makers, but it never came to fruition.
“We finally decided, after three years of effort, that it was a pipe dream because of the contracts,” Mr. Weinberg testified.
Google’s witnesses mostly included people within the company. When CEO Pichai testified, he said that paying billions of dollars to ensure Google Search was placed by default on devices made perfect sense, as it would for any company.
“We want to make using our service very, very transparent and easy for users,” he said.
During the trial, Google requested that much of the testimony about its business dealings be presented behind closed doors. Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of services, testified for four hours, but more than half of that time was closed to the public. And, throughout the trial, Google repeatedly fought to seal the documents and end the proceedings in public court.
This situation has become so prevalent that the New York Times and other major news organizations filed a lawsuit imploring the judge to ensure the case takes place in a public courtroom.
Judge will decide if laws from the 1800s apply in today’s modern world
The trial was conducted on what is called a bench trial, meaning there is no jury and Judge Mehta will decide. After final arguments, he is expected to issue his decision in the coming months.
If Mehta sides with Google, the company’s business practices will likely remain the same. If he agrees with the Justice Department, it is not clear how he would sanction Google. This could range from fines to a restructuring of the company.
Closing arguments are expected to conclude Friday. It is possible that some of the previously sealed documents will be made public, providing more evidence. The Justice Department and Google are expected to reiterate their key takeaways from the trial and answer the judge’s questions.
In a post-trial brief, Google wrote that evidence collected during the trial proved that “Google is the most popular and highest quality search engine.” While the Justice Department and the states wrote in their post-trial brief that Google “exploited its monopoly power to ‘freeze the ecosystem’ of what should otherwise be a vibrant and competitive industry.”
Weinstein, the Cardozo law professor, believes it will be interesting to see how Mehta governs and whether antitrust laws created in the late 1800s can still be applied in today’s modern world.
“I think there’s at least some evidence that they’re still applicable and they can still work even though we’ve moved past the chimney age and into the digital age,” he says.
Editor’s Note: Google, Apple and Microsoft are among NPR’s financial backers.
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