Microsoft CEO Nadella testifies against Google in case on 'billion-dollar' exclusivity contracts

In an explosive court testimony, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella on Monday (Oct 2) said that rival tech giant Google's dominance of the search engine market gives it an unfair advantage over rivals.

The Microsoft CEO was speaking during a tense cross-examination by a Google lawyer in the midst of a trial, where lawyers from the US Department of Justice are attempting to persuade a federal judge to rule on Google's antitrust actions.

He also slammed Apple, recalling Microsoft's willingness to pay the iPhone maker to get Bing the 'default status' on the phone. Microsoft was even readyto hide its search engine's brand on Apple Inc handsets, he said.

'Dominant' Google

Hitting out sharply at the business practices of his arch rival company, Nadella said Google has made it very hard for rivals to emerge.

Addressing a courtroom in Washington, DC, he said, "you can call it popular, but to me it's dominant."

The case by US DoJ alleged that Google has illegally paid billions of dollars to Apple and others to preserve its monopoly.

Bing's fight for a market share

As per AFP, Microsoft's Bing has been trying since 2009 to build market share against Google. However, Nadella blamed the company's failure onGoogle.

He said Bing could never compete against the search engine behemoth.

Nadella backed the US Government's contention that Google's dominance of the search engine market fuels its intake of data, which creates a 'network effect' that further fortifies Google's prominence as a more powerful tool to advertisers and users.

He said: "It becomes even harder to break through when you don't have (market) share."

What is Google antitrust trial?

The US and its state allies contend that Google has unfairly forged its position as the world's pre-eminent search engine.

They allege that Google's domination of online search is a result of exclusivity contracts the tech titan signed with device makers, mobile operators and other companies. These contracts allegedly involved making Google the default search engine on most phones and web browsers.

Filed in 2020, the lawsuit alleges that such contracts were intended to be "exclusionary" by Google and that they left rivals no chance to compete with the search engine, enabling its position as the search market king.

It also alleges that such contracts have resulted in less choice for consumers and also less innovation.

This, in turn, helped Google parent firm Alphabet to be one of the richest companies on the planet. As per government estimates, Google has grabbed a 90 per cent of the market share in search in recent years.

The three-month trial, as per AFP, is the biggest US antitrust case against a big tech company since the US Department of Justice took on Microsoft more than two decades ago over the dominance of its Windows operating system.

(With inputs from agencies)

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