Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, recently faced intense scrutiny from a US antitrust lawyer, as he defended his company against accusations of illegal actions to maintain the dominance of its search engine. The US Department of Justice has focused on Google’s revenue sharing deals, particularly with Apple, in which Apple receives a significant portion of Google ad revenue as the default search engine on Apple devices. Testimony revealed that Google paid out $26 billion last year to remain the default search engine on various smartphones and browsers, with the majority going to Apple.

During his testimony, Pichai emphasized Google’s mission to make information universally accessible and useful, despite new competitors and advancements in artificial intelligence. However, government lawyers attempted to challenge this claim, using old company emails, chats, and letters as evidence. They pressed Pichai to acknowledge that the default arrangement with Apple was crucial to Google’s business.

One tense exchange involved an internal memo expressing concern that some searches on Apple devices were being “cannibalized” by Siri. In 2019, Pichai discussed this issue with Apple CEO Tim Cook, attributing it to Apple’s lower-than-expected revenue from Google searches the previous year. The memo also highlighted the vision of working as one company when it comes to search. Pichai defended Google’s competitive relationship with Apple but stated that there may have been some exaggeration about how well the meetings went.

Additionally, Pichai faced questions about company chats where he requested the conversation be set to “history off,” automatically deleting the content after 24 hours. This raised suspicions among government lawyers that Pichai was attempting to prevent incriminating conversations from being used as evidence.

Pichai’s testimony underscores the ongoing antitrust investigation into Google’s practices and the increasing scrutiny tech giants face regarding their market dominance. As the case unfolds, it will be interesting to see how Pichai’s responses impact the outcome. Stay updated with the latest news by following KT on WhatsApp Channels.