Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella testified Monday as a witness for the U.S. Department of Justice in a landmark antitrust case against Google’s parent company Alphabet. The Justice Department alleges that Google, which controls about 90% of the search market, abuses its ubiquitous search engine dominance, stifling competition and innovation at the expense of consumers. The government claims that to stay on top, Google illegally paid $10 billion a year to smartphone makers like Apple and wireless carriers like AT&T to make search the default on their devices. are doing.
Here’s what Satya Nadella told a packed courtroom in Washington, D.C.:
Nadella said it will never be able to compete with the search engine giant, largely because of its deal with Apple.
“You could say it’s popular, but to me it’s dominant,” Nadella told Google’s lawyers during a tense cross-examination.
He said the unfair tactics used by Google gave it an advantage as a search engine and thwarted the company’s rival program, Bing.
“We are an alternative, but not the default,” Nadella said.
Nadella revealed that Microsoft is willing to hide the Bing branding of its search engine on Apple devices to secure an agreement with the iPhone maker. Nadella said winning that default spot from Apple would be a “game changer.”
{{^userSubscribed}} {{/userSubscribed}} {{^userSubscribed}} {{/userSubscribed}} “Whoever they choose, they will make him king.”
Microsoft’s chief executive complains that Google is locking in content with expensive and exclusive deals with publishers at a time when tech giants are competing for vast amounts of content needed to train artificial intelligence. Stated.
“Right now, when I’m meeting with publishers, they tell me that Google is going to write this check and it’s proprietary and they have to match it,” he said.
Nadella said he is now concerned that Google could use its dominance in search to power content providers that are key to training generative AI models.
“Despite my enthusiasm, I am very worried that this vicious cycle could get even worse,” Nadella said.
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