You might not expect an antitrust trial focused on Google\u2019s overwhelming dominance in the year 2023 to spend a lot of time talking about Internet Explorer circa 2005. But you\u2019d be wrong.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Google CEO Sundar Pichai spent a good chunk of Monday in a DC courtroom, testifying as part of the ongoing US v. Google<\/em> antitrust trial<\/a>. He stood at a podium instead of sitting (apparently he hurt his back), often with a magnifying glass in his hand, pushing his glasses up on his forehead as he squinted down at a binder full of exhibits. One exhibit proved particularly interesting: a letter from Google\u2019s then-top lawyer David Drummond, sent on July 22nd, 2005, to Microsoft\u2019s then-general counsel Brad Smith.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Drummond\u2019s letter concerned the launch of Microsoft Internet Explorer 7, the new browser that would have its first beta release five days later. (Not long after, Pichai and a small team would start to work on Google\u2019s own browser, Chrome, which eventually crushed Internet Explorer<\/a> entirely.) Drummond had a problem with a new feature in IE7: a small search bar off to the right of the browser\u2019s URL bar. By default, Drummond said, anyone who typed in that search bar and hit enter would do a search on MSN.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n A Washington, DC, judge is hearing the Department of Justice\u2019s antitrust case against Google. The DOJ alleges Google struck anticompetitive deals with Apple and other companies for prime placement of its search engine, while Google contends its dominant market share is the result of a superior product. It\u2019s the biggest tech antitrust trial since the US took on Microsoft in the 1990s: 10 weeks that could tip the balance of power online.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n Well, sort of. To summarize about 20 minutes of increasingly exasperated back-and-forth between Pichai and US Justice Department lawyer Meagan Bellshaw, here\u2019s how Google saw it: Microsoft planned to \u201chonor\u201d the default search engine setting that users chose in previous versions of IE, but in those previous versions, that setting was hidden and functionally useless. Hardly anyone knew it existed, much less changed it. This, Drummond argued, was an actively user-hostile thing to do. \u201cAnd since very few users are aware of the auto search feature in previous versions of IE (as even the employees from Microsoft acknowledge),\u201d he wrote, \u201cthat original default setting has very seldom been changed to popular search providers that users actually employ, like Google.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Drummond offered an alternative. Microsoft should offer a choice screen to new IE7 users, he wrote, letting them choose which search engine would be their default in the browser. \u201cGoogle believes that the search market should remain competitive,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n One way to look at this 2005 letter is as a relic of a very different time. Microsoft was tech\u2019s dominant player and a ruthless competitor, Pichai argued, and it was doing an acceptable thing \u2014 prioritizing its own products \u2014\u00a0in a uniquely shady way. (He noted both that Microsoft didn\u2019t make the changes and that tech companies have only gotten more ruthless about self-prioritizing.) Another way to look at this letter is that it demonstrates exactly what\u2019s wrong with how Google operates in the search market now.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n At the beginning of Pichai\u2019s testimony, Google lawyer John Schmidtlein had Pichai walk through his life and work history, from growing up in India to running one of the largest companies on the planet. Pichai joined Google in 2004, and Schmidtlein asked several times why he believed in Google and whether he believed it had changed over time. \u201cI saw the potential,\u201d Pichai said. \u201cI realized for the first time the internet would touch most of humanity and it was a once-in-a-generation opportunity.\u201d He quoted Google\u2019s original mission without missing a beat, and said that \u201cif anything, it\u2019s more timeless and relevant than ever before.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Pichai made the case that Search, Android, and Chrome are not only good products, but are good for the internet as a whole<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n Search is a fast-changing, vastly complicated product, Pichai said, and only becomes more so over time. He made the case that Search, Android, and Chrome are not only good products, but are good for the internet as a whole because they\u2019re open-source products that make people use the web more. \u201cPeople use Android to build smartphones at prices as low as $30,\u201d Pichai said, \u201cand it\u2019s what has helped bring hundreds of millions of people online.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The Google version of this case is simple, really. Google\u2019s search engine is a good product, it says. Google took over the web by making it accessible to billions of people around the world, and it\u2019s still the same company Pichai runs today.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Bellshaw\u2019s questioning took a vastly different tack, back to the DOJ\u2019s central stance of hammering home the importance of defaults. She asked Pichai a version of the question \u201cYou believe defaults are valuable, right?\u201d over and over throughout her questioning. She showed Pichai a 2007 email from a Google product strategy meeting where Google\u2019s Nitin Sharma shared data noting that when people changed their browser homepage to Google, they immediately started to do 15 percent more Google searches, and when they switched away, they did 27 percent less. \u201cNitin argues that focusing on homepage market share is one of the most effective things we can do to make gains in search market share,\u201d read an email summarizing the meeting that was sent to Pichai and others in Google\u2019s leadership team.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n A few minutes later, Bellshaw brought up Drummond\u2019s letter as more evidence that Google understands the value of defaults. She kept presenting lines that a Google executive wrote 18 years ago that could very well be the words of a DuckDuckGo or Brave employee now. \u201cThe problems with the default setting are further compounded by how changes to the default are handled,\u201d Drummond wrote. \u201cAs you know, most end users do not change defaults.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cAs you know, most end users do not change defaults.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n The money Google spends to be that default \u2014 which we now know to have been roughly $26.3 billion in 2021 alone<\/a> \u2014 was a key focus of Pichai\u2019s testimony, as it has been throughout the trial. During Schmidtlein\u2019s questioning, Pichai argued that the deals are about more than just money. Google uses the rev-share structure to incentivize Android OEMs like Samsung, HTC, and Motorola to promote their devices, he said, and even maintain them better over time. (When Judge Amit Mehta asked how that worked, Pichai said Google makes some of its rev-share money dependent on devices getting security updates. For some partners, he said, \u201cmore effort goes into developing the next version, and updates are costly… so sometimes they make tradeoffs.\u201d)<\/p>\n<\/div>\nFOLLOW ALONG FOR ALL THE LATEST NEWS AND UPDATES FROM THE TRIAL.<\/a><\/h5>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n