WASHINGTON: The US government has accused Google of paying out $10 billion annually to Apple and other companies to secure its domination over online search, Western media reported on Tuesday.
The allegations came on the first day of a milestone trial that is the major antitrust case in the US in more than twenty years.
“This case is regarding the future of the internet and whether the major search engine Google will ever face competition in search,” said Justice Department attorney Kenneth Dintzer as the US government started making its case against the tech giant.
US Says Google Pays $10 Billion Annually to Dominate Search
“The tech giant has for several years innovated and enhanced its search engine; petitioners escape this unavoidable truth,” Google’s attorney John Schmidtlein argued before the court of law.
Held in, the case is the first time US prosecutors have begun a big tech firm head-on since Microsoft was targeted over two decades ago over the supremacy of its Windows operating structure.
The Google case centres on the authorities’ contention that the search engine unfairly gained its domination of search by forging exclusivity agreements with mobile operators, device makers, and other firms that left competitors no chance to contest.
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Kenneth Dintzer told the Judge that Google pays more than $10 billion annually to Apple and other firms to secure its search engine default status on web browsers and phones.
The dominance has made the search engine parent Alphabet one of the world’s richest firms, with search advertisement generating about 60 percent of the firm’s revenue, dwarfing revenue from other activities such as Android phones and YouTube.
