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Google is fighting a massive court battle against the United States Department of Justice (DOJ). The company is accused of violating antitrust law by abusing its power in the online search market to stifle competition. We are looking at the biggest antitrust case in the past 25 years. Google’s senior vice president responsible for search and ads, Prabhakar Raghavan, was the first to testify in the case on Thursday. CEO Sundar Pichai will follow on Monday.
Google CEO Sundar Pichai to testify in the DOJ antitrust case
The trial for the DOJ’s antitrust case against Google began last month. After prosecutors presented their case, Google began its defense on Thursday. In his testimony, Raghavan claimed that Google hasn’t stifled competition or done anything at all. Users pick it over rivals because it’s better. It has spent a lot of amount on research and development to improve its product and offer better services to users. All of this is the fruit of its years of innovation.
The internet giant’s CEO Sundar Pichai will reportedly be the next big name on the hot seat. He will testify in Washington, DC, on Monday. The prosecutors will reportedly question him for “encouraging employees to keep their messages private,” the NYPost reports. The Google boss allegedly told employees to “change the setting of this group to history off.” This happened in at least one recorded chat from 2021.
According to the new report, Pichai made this request to discuss “a substantive topic” related to company business. Soon after posting the message (nine seconds later) in the group chat, he unsuccessfully attempted to “delete this incriminating message.” Court filings don’t go into detail about the “substantive topic” that Pichai wanted to discuss with Google employees. It’s also unclear if he made similar requests in other chats.
However, the plaintiffs argue that “the newly produced chats reveal a companywide culture of concealment coming from the very top, including CEO Sundar Pichai.” It will be interesting to see how the Google boss responds to the allegations. The company is expected to present its defense in the case over the next month. The court may not announce its ruling until early next year.
Google’s ties with Apple are one of the DOJ’s major targets
Google pays Apple as much as $18 billion every year to make its search engine the default option on iPhones, iPads, and Macs. The DOJ is targeting this partnership in this case. It argues that Google is stifling competition by not allowing others a chance.
The Justice Department even highlighted the complicated process of changing the default search engine on iPhones. It involves four taps and one swipe. Time will tell what comes out of this court battle.
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