Google paid billions of dollars to telecom giants like Apple and Samsung to “illegally” remain the default search engine on their products, according to US Department of Justice (DOJ) attorney Kenneth Dintzer, who argued the case before Judge Amit Mehta. During a hearing in Washington on Thursday. Google is accused of “buying default exclusivity” on most browsers and all US mobile phones. This exclusivity is believed to deny competitors user data, which is the key to search engine success.
According to Bloomberg ReportThese Google contracts are the basis of the US DOJ’s landmark antitrust lawsuit, which accuses the company of maintaining a search monopoly in violation of antitrust laws.
Google has agreements with smartphone makers like Apple. Samsung, Motorola and three telecom carriers AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, according to the report. Dintzer argued that this exclusivity prevented Google’s competitors from challenging the search engine.
As part of their defense, Google has argued that many of these agreements have existed since the 2000s. Moreover, they seem essential to companies like Mozilla that offer their services for free.
The antitrust case is expected to formally begin next year. Thursday’s hearing was the first significant one in the case, reports said.
