In courtroom number 10 of the federal courts in Washington there is an eerie wall clock without hands. In that room full of lawyers, the prosecutor who accuses Google of abusing its monopoly position as a search engine has proposed a trip in time. In his opening statement he said that “the future of the Internet” is at stake in the trial that began this Tuesday. And to lay the foundations for that future and whether Google’s search engine will ever face significant competition, he added, we must look to the past and see how “it has illegally maintained a monopoly for more than a decade.”
Without reaching the end of the day when charges were filed against Donald Trump in that same complex for trying to overturn the results of the 2020 elections, the atmosphere in the courts was that of great occasions. There were photographers and television cameras stationed at the entrances and slow lines to enter. The courts have set up two rooms to accommodate the large number of journalists who have attended the most important illegal monopoly trial in two decades, since the Microsoft case. In the courtroom, to which EL PAÍS has been able to access, nearly half of the hundred or so people present were lawyers from both sides. Judge Amit P. Mehta entered the courtroom punctually, at 9:30 in the morning, local time, and joked about it. “Even for Washington, I think we have a higher concentration of blue suits than anywhere else here today.”
Justice Department prosecutor Kenneth Dintzer, 59, has opened opening statements. He used slides, some somewhat basic, that were seen on two large screens on the sides of the room and on the multiple monitors of judges, prosecutors and lawyers. In one of the first he has presented the circle – vicious or virtuous, depending on who – that Google has used to establish its dominance of searches. That wheel of searches, scale, income and exclusive agreements has been spinning for more than a decade, he has said, “and it always does so in favor of Google.”
Dintzer, who stuttered at times, especially when the judge interrupted him with his questions, has not put a date on when Google reached its dominant position, but has assured that it has been maintaining it with illegal practices since 2010. Having a monopoly is legal, what is against the law is abusing it. The accusation focuses above all on the agreements with mobile and browser manufacturers such as Apple, Samsung or Mozilla so that Google became the default search engine, something that the accusation claims that Google used as a “weapon.”
“Google pays more than $10 billion a year for these privileged positions,” Dintzer said. “Google’s contracts ensure that rivals can’t match ad monetization search quality, especially on phones.” In addition, he has shown on the screen internal Google messages that showed how the company was putting pressure on these agreements, for example so that Apple did not divert searches to Siri or Samsung to its own suggestions. “Your Honor, this is a monopoly in action.”
The prosecutor has also accused the company of hiding and deleting internal documents and messages that could be evidence against it. He has taught some in that direction. “They turned off history, your honor, so they could rewrite it here in this court,” Dintzer said.
The reply was made by John Schmidtlein, a 57-year-old partner at the law firm Williams & Connolly, who defends Google. The lawyer has assured that users now have more search options and more ways to access information on the Internet than ever before. In general searches, its share is 89% in the United States, according to the Department of Justice.
The company now integrated into Alphabet considers that the market to take into account should be broader and include product searches on Amazon or those carried out on social networks such as Instagram or TikTok, in addition to artificial intelligence. Travel firms (TripAdvisor, Expedia, Booking.com or Hotels.com) or food delivery firms (such as Doordash, UberEats and Yelp) are also rivals, according to their defense.
Schhmidtein has insisted that if the other competitors have not made their way, it is not because Google has abused its position, but because its search engine is better. He has also stressed that it is easy to change the default search engine of browsers, although the prosecutor had previously pointed out that users do not usually do so. The judge has asked the lawyer how many people do it and he has excused himself by saying that there is no data available. To try to demonstrate his lack of bad faith, he has indicated that there are tutorials on YouTube (owned by Google) that teach how to change to another search engine.
“Plaintiffs’ allegations seek to distort competition in search by hindering Google and its ability to compete, in the hope that forcing people to use inferior products in the short term will somehow be good for competition in the long term.” , has concluded his argument.
After these initial presentations, a parade of witnesses will begin that will last about 10 weeks. Among them, the CEO of Alphabet, Sundar Pichai, and Apple executives are expected.
If Judge Amit P. Mehta, appointed in 2014 by Barack Obama, concludes that Google’s position is monopolistic, that it has abused it and that this has directly or indirectly harmed consumers, he will have ample room to make palliative decisions. The Department of Justice, in its lawsuit, referred to them in a very generic way. The sentence will be appealable in an appeals court and, potentially, before the Supreme Court.
Attorney General Merrick Garland announced another lawsuit against Google last January, in this case for alleged abuse of a dominant position in the digital advertising market. That case is not expected to go to trial until at least next year. In that lawsuit, the Government expressly requested that its business in that area be divided through divestments to promote competition.
The European Union has been ahead in the offensive against Google’s monopolistic practices. While the trial of the first of the two pending cases now begins in the United States (there is a third, regarding the application store, in which the company has reached an out-of-court agreement in principle), the European Commission has given Google the three highest fines in its history. A year ago, the judges supported a record fine of 4,125 million for the company for anti-competitive practices in search services (a case similar to the one that is now going to be tried in Washington, but focused on the Android operating system). They also ratified another of 2.4 billion in November 2021 for privileging their products in searches (that part has been left out of the current litigation). In addition, the Commission also imposed another fine of almost 1.5 billion in March 2019 for its abuses in the digital advertising market. More than 8,000 million in total.
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