Google shells out $10 bn yearly to maintain online search monopoly: Report

The US government on Tuesday accused Google of giving out $10 billion annually to Apple and other companies in order to maintain its monopoly over online search, according to a report by NDTV.

The claim was made on the first day of a historic trial that is the largest antitrust case to come before a US court in a period of more than 20 years.

“This case is about the future of the internet and whether Google will ever face meaningful competition in search,” NDTV quoted Justice Department lawyer Kenneth Dintzer as saying, while the United States government began making its case against the tech titan.

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Google is looking to convince Judge Amit P. Mehta that the lawsuit initiated by the Department of Justice is without merit over the course of ten weeks with the help of numerous witnesses who will be called to the witness stand.

Google’s attorney John Schmidtleinsaid that the company has developed their search engine for years and that the ones who brought on the legal action do not know of the “inescapable truth.”

The trial, which is being held in a courthouse in Washington, is the first direct trial by US authorities on a major computer giant since Microsoft was singled out more than 20 years ago for the monopoly of its Windows operating system.

The government’s main argument in the Google case is that the internet giant unfairly obtained its dominance of online searches through the creation of exclusivity agreements with device manufacturers, mobile operators, and other businesses that denied competitors the opportunity to compete.

Dintzer informed Judge Mehta that Google spends $10 billion annually to Apple and other companies to maintain its position as the default search engine on mobile devices and online browsers, smothering challengers before they had a chance to flourish.

This led to what the government refers to as a “feedback loop” during the past ten years, in which Google’s dominance increased due to its monopolistic access to user data that rivals were unable to match.

“Through this feedback loop, this wheel has been turning for more than 12 years. It always turns to Google's advantage,” NDTV quoted Dintzer as saying.

Due to its dominance, Google parent Alphabet is now among the richest corporations in the world. Revenue from search ads accounts for about 60 per cent of the company’s total sales, far outpacing that of Android phones and YouTube.

Dintzer told the jury that they shall keep a tab on what Google did to protect its monopoly. According to them, the focus should be on what they did, not on what they could have or should have done.

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