MICROSOFT CEO SAYS UNFAIR PRACTICES BY GOOGLE LED TO ITS DOMINANCE AS A SEARCH ENGINE

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said that unfair tactics used by Google led to its dominance as a search engine, tactics that in turn have thwarted his company’s rival program, Bing.

Nadella testified in a packed Washington, D.C., courtroom as part of the government’s landmark antitrust trial against Google’s parent company, Alphabet. The Justice Department alleges Google has abused the dominance of its ubiquitous search engine to throttle competition and innovation at the expense of consumers, allegations that echo a similar case brought against Microsoft in the late 1990s.

Nadella said Google’s dominance was due to agreements that made it the default browser on smartphones and computers. He downplayed the idea that artificial intelligence or more niche search engines like Amazon or social media sites have meaningfully changed the market in which Microsoft competes with Google.

Nadella said users fundamentally don’t have much choice in switching out of default web browsers on cell phones and computers.

“We are one of the alternatives but we’re not the default,” he said.

Google’s lead litigator John Schmidtlein questioned Nadella about instances when users switched from Bing to Google even when Microsoft’s search engine had default status on their devices — arguing that Microsoft made missteps with Bing that prevented it from rivaling Google.