The U.S. antitrust executor returned to a deal reached by Google 15 years ago, believing that the Alphabet Inc. division should once again share information with third parties, this time ending its illegal monopoly online search.
Google's agreement in 2010 aims to provide Yahoo Japan with search index data that only applies to Google's Japanese index and not its global index. But Justice Department attorney David Dahlquist said in court Friday that Google has volunteered to share data with others in the past.
Google has been postponing the U.S. remedy proposed by the U.S. to address search dominance, one of which is sharing search data with competitors. Google claims this will endanger user privacy and put its intellectual property at risk.
The three-week trial, which re-examines the Yahoo deal, will determine how to resume competition with online searches after U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta ruled last year that the tech giant illegally maintained its monopoly in the market. In another antitrust case before another judge, the Justice Department urged Google on Friday to be ordered to sell key parts of its ad technology to resolve a ruling that it illegally monopolizes most of the market that puts ads on the web.
The government wants Google to divest its Chrome browser, license some search data to competitors, and stop paying for exclusive jobs on other apps and devices. Google countered that the government's advice was too extreme, saying they would hurt American consumers and the economy and weaken U.S. technology leadership.
The document details Yahoo Accord's introduction to the agreement during Jesse Adkins, Director of Product Management at the Federation of Search, which oversees the implementation of the agreement for many years. The transaction requires Google to share document IDs, URLs, and various signals such as popularity and spam scores.
“Sir, do you know that the Yahoo Japan Agreement is actually the basis of plaintiff data sharing remedies in this way?” Dahlquist asked while browsing the differences in the agreement in court.
“I will believe your words,” Adkins replied.
Google has long been associated with Yahoo Japan with services not related to the US Yahoo search engine, providing it with search results and some backend work related to search ads. During the inquiry, Google's lawyers tried to clarify that the tech giant agreed to share a part of its Japanese language search index, just to have Yahoo Japan evaluate the quality of Google's search results and provide feedback to Google.
Adkins also testified that Yahoo Japan needs data shared by Google to ensure Google's search results comply with local laws, such as categorizing around appropriate adult websites. Adkins said the protocol evolved over time, and Google then provided Japan with a more limited data set rather than a batch data dump of the past.
Google's next witness is Eric Muhlheim, chief financial officer at Mozilla, who discusses the importance of its partnership with the search giant. Last year, Muhlheim's Mozilla was the maker of the popular Firefox browser, bringing in $570 million. Of these revenues, 85% come from Google, which pays Mozilla an exclusive position on the Firefox browser.
In the short term, if the company is forced to switch to other providers of Firefox's built-in search engines, and Mozilla's U.S. revenue will “sharply decline” under its long-term revenue-sharing agreement, Murheim said.
“The subsequent revenue loopholes must be overcome by a substantial reduction in costs across the business,” Murheim said, adding that this remedy will also reduce the amount of funds a company can invest in its own software and make it less competitive.
It could “start people in the browser to fall off, which could take Firefox out of business,” he said.
If Google is banned from paying exclusive positions on Mozilla's Firefox browser, Muhlheim testified that the company will seek alternatives. “But at the same time we are really struggling,” he said.
Last year, Muhlheim said the company explored other options, including discussions with Microsoft Corp. about its Bing Web browser being discussed in the way Mozilla's default search engine slot. But ultimately, Mozra's assessment is that Bin will not make as profitable as Google.
Muhlheim added that he believes Microsoft can share the amount of revenue with Mozilla over time, the only strong competitor to search engine browser slots.
In a sermon exchange after Muhlheim's testimony ended, Mehta asked Mozilla if Mozilla would benefit apart from Google with the same quality of service to compete for search engine slots in Firefox browsers. Murheim replied that it would be a “better” world for Mozilla.
“Do you think the market conditions that exist today can achieve what you are talking about in the short term or long term?” Mehta asked.
“In some ways, it's hard to know because AI is coming in. One can imagine that in AI, the amount of money people have and how people work” would create the world, Murheim replied. “So I don’t think it’s a problem.”
This article was generated from the Automation News Agency feed without the text being modified.
