Alphabet Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai told a judge who found that Google illegally monopolizes online search that a Justice Department proposal to share search data with rivals would be a “de facto” divestiture of the company’s search engine.
If Google were required to share both its search data and the information on how it ranks results, rivals could reverse-engineer “every aspect of our technology,” Pichai testified on Wednesday.
“The proposal on data sharing is so far-reaching, so extraordinary,” Pichai said. It “feels like de facto divestiture of search” and its entire intellectual property and technology over 25 years of research, he said.
During testimony in federal court in Washington, Pichai asserted that a package of antitrust remedies proposed by the government is too extreme and will undermine Google’s ability to compete in the market. The combination of remedies would “make it unviable to continue to invest in” research and development, he said. “It will have many unintended consequences.”
‘Definitely a Slowdown’
Pichai said the Justice Department’s proposal is much broader than the recent European gatekeeper law, the Digital Markets Act, that requires Google to share some data with rival search engines.
That law is “significantly narrower,” he said, but has caused the company to delay introducing some innovations in the EU. “There’s definitely a slowdown on when we are able to launch features in Europe,” he said.
Pichai was called to testify as part of a three-week trial aimed at determining how Google should restore competition to online search after US District Judge Amit Mehta ruled last year that the tech giant had illegally maintained a monopoly in the market. The Justice Department wrapped up its case on Tuesday afternoon and the company is now presenting its evidence and testimony.
The government wants Google to divest itself of its Chrome browser, license some search data to competitors and stop paying for exclusive positions on other apps and devices. It has also asked that Mehta extend the ban to Google’s AI products, including its AI assistant Gemini, which the government says were aided by the company’s illegal monopoly in search.
Google has countered that the government’s proposal would hurt American consumers and the economy, and weaken US technological leadership.
Pichai also pushed back on another aspect of the government’s proposed remedy that would bar the company from paying smartphone makers or browsers for default placement. Those payments help browsers like Mozilla and smartphone makers support the Android ecosystem, he said.
“If Google is able to continue to pay for defaults, how could any other competitor possibly pay as much as Google is able to pay?” Mehta asked.
Pichai said both Microsoft and OpenAI have been able to outcompete Google on some deals with publishers for content to be used in AI systems. OpenAI also won a deal with Apple to offer its ChatGPT technology on the iPhone, he said, though Google hopes to sign a deal to offer its own AI chatbot on the iPhone this year.
Third Time Testifying
Pichai is testifying for the third time in as many years, as Google’s long-running antitrust cases have wound their way through the courts. In late 2023, over two short weeks, the tech executive had to pivot from Mehta’s courtroom in Washington, defending Google in the first phase of the Justice Department’s search monopoly case, to another in San Francisco where a judge heard accusations by Fortnite maker Epic Games that Google Play had illegally maintained dominance in the mobile-app marketplace.
In both those cases, plus a third where Pichai didn’t testify — concerning Google’s dominance of online advertising technology markets — Google was found to have engaged in anticompetitive behavior. That shows the unprecedented antitrust scrutiny the tech company has faced in recent years in the US over its power to control key aspects of the online world.
Pichai, 52, has spent the majority of his career at Google, starting as a product manager in 2004 and rising through the ranks to become CEO of the company in 2015. He has held several roles, including helping to engineer the company’s Android strategy and playing a key role in the development of Chrome.
Lawyer Pushes Pichai
During cross-examination, DOJ lawyer Veronica Onyema pushed Pichai on the idea that there was no way at present to know who an eventual buyer for the Chrome browser would be — and thus that Pichai wouldn’t be able to speak to the internal security measures the buyer could put into place. Pichai said his intimate knowledge of Chrome and its security qualified him to give his opinion.
“I personally built the underpinnings of Chrome, along with the security team,” he responded.
Under questioning, he acknowledged that no company is perfect at addressing privacy concerns and that it would be impossible for Google to address cybersecurity issues on its own.
As was the case during his first appearance in federal court for the initial phase of the Justice Department’s search monopoly case, Pichai was dressed in a dark suit and decided to stand instead of sit as he gave testimony. He was Google’s second witness, after the company’s lawyers called on Google employee Heather Adkins, a cybersecurity expert, on Tuesday afternoon. Adkins testified that Google’s commitment to security made it a good steward of Chrome, as she described ways that the company worked to thwart bad actors’ malicious attacks targeting the browser.
Mehta has said he wants to deliver a decision on how to remedy the harm caused by Google’s dominance by August. But whatever he decides, there will likely be a years-long wait for any changes to take effect at Google. After the remedy hearing, the company is expected to appeal and potentially take the case to the US Supreme Court.
(This story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
