10 Wacky Moments From Day One of Google’s Antitrust Trial

A key part of Google’s argument is that it’s easy to change your default search engine, but of course, that requires knowing it’s possible and caring enough to make an effort.

Judge Amit P. Mehta asked Google’s Schmidtlein how many people change the built-in search engine on Firefox, in which Google pays to be the default option. Schmidtlein said “droves” of people switch, but said Google has no idea how many people make the change. Answer: we have no idea. At a company built on data analysis, that’s a tough sell.

Schmidtlein said there’s no reliable data on that question, and even if there was it wouldn’t be accurate because people can just switch back.

Google pays Apple an exorbitant amount to make its search engine the default on iPhones and the Safari browser, but we never knew exactly how much. Thanks to the court system, we finally have an answer: $10 billion a year.

According to the government, Google isn’t just paying to be the default, it’s also cutting checks to make it less likely that companies like Apple will make competing products. Why make your own search engine when Google’s lining your pockets?

The DOJ said Apple wanted to give users a choice screen that would let them pick between Google and Yahoo, but Google said no. “No default placement, no revenue share,” Google said in an email, according to Kenneth Dintzer, the lead attorney for the DOJ. “This is a monopolist flexing,” Dintzer said.

Dintze told the court that Google goes out of its way to hide conversations and keep documents out of the regulator’s hands. Dintzer cited a message where Google CEO Sundar Pichai asked to turn off chat history, and said Google cc’s lawyers on emails where they aren’t needed just to shield the contents under attorney-client privilege.

“They turned history off, your honor, so they could rewrite it here in this courtroom,” Dintzer told the judge.

Not surprisingly, Google says it’s not a monopoly. People use Google “because it delivers value to them, not because they have to,” Google’s Schmidtlein said. “Users today have more search options and ways to access information online than ever before.”

Judge Mehta asked the DOJ when exactly Google became a monopoly. Dintzer didn’t answer that question, but said Google started illegally working to preserve its monopoly in 2010.

Google lawyer Schmidtlein told the court that the government is fighting a backwards lawsuit “all in the hopes that forcing people to use inferior products in the short run will somehow be good for competition in the long run.”

The DOJ called Google’s Chief Economist Hal Varian as its first witness. During the examination, the DOJ cited emails in which Varian commented about how useful it would be to make it hard to switch to Bing. The DOJ even cited a memo where Varian said “We also have to be sensitive about antitrust concerns” surrounding this issue.

“This case is about the future of the internet and whether Google will ever face meaningful competition,” said DOJ lawyer Dintzer said in his opening statement.

Antitrust super fans will recognize at least one face at the trial: John Schmidtlein, Google’s lead attorney. Schmidtelein represented a number of states during the government’s antitrust case against Microsoft 20 years ago. Google also hired Mark Popofsky, who represented the DOJ in the Microsoft case, as an antitrust advisor. It’s what you might call a “power move.”