Amidst what is being called the biggest tech antitrust trial since the 90s, Microsoft testified in federal court on October 2. According to live courtroom updates, there has not been any mention of Google's search engine dominance causing consumer harm.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella testified in the Google antitrust trial on Monday, October 2. According to the New York Times, Mr. Nadella's testimony focused on the tactics used by the tech giant, which ultimately prevented the success of Microsoft's Bing search engine.
Federal courtroom updates from The Verge revealed that Nadella believes Google's dominance as the default search engine has not only impacted Bing's business but also its product. He says the lack of scale and user data has made it challenging for Bing to compete effectively. However, there was never any mention from Mr. Nadella of how Google's use of resources to dominate in the search engine market causes harm to consumers. Instead, he focused on the harm it's causing Microsoft.
Both Nadella's and the DOJ's main concern in the ongoing trial is Google's practice of paying web browser and mobile phone providers to make its search engine the default choice. Nadella contends that Microsoft has struggled to counter Google's strategy of using multi-billion-dollar agreements to secure its position as the universal default option.
A significant aspect of Google's defense is that it’s not illegal to build a great product that consumers prefer. To emphasize this point, Google's lawyer, John Schmidtlein, spent an hour in the federal courtroom highlighting Microsoft's historical failures such as Internet Explorer, Live Search, Windows Phone, and various other browser and mobile issues. According to The Verge's David Pierce, Nadella's counterarguments were that "it’s impossible to be better than Google."
According to Mark Jamison, who recently published an op-ed on AEI.org, a comprehensive investigation conducted in 2020 by the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) found that consumers' preference of search engines is primarily based on the “relevance of search results” and that ultimately, "consumers prefer Google search due to its effectiveness."