| |MAY 20248TECH MINTGoogle and the US Justice Department concluded their closing arguments about allegations that the Alphabet company has illegally controlled web search and related advertising.In Washington, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta spent hours questioning the parties involved, trying to find out if rival platforms like Facebook and Instagram from Meta and TikTok from ByteDance are a viable alternative to search advertising money.Mehta stated that the platform's "substitute-ability" for advertisers was a crucial matter that needed to be settled by the court. He will now start getting ready to make a significant ruling regarding whether or not Google's actions violated civil antitrust law. Although he did not specify when he would make a decision, analysts speculate that he would mandate modifications to Google's corporate procedures.Mehta also inquired as to whether Google evaluates the prices of its rivals prior to altering its own. Approximately 75 percent of Google's revenue comes from its advertising division.U.S. government lawyer David Dahlquist argued that "advertising revenue is what drives Google's monopoly power today."Dahlquist asserted that Google has boasted about not feeling any real market forces and that the business has no fear of raising prices or stagnating in product development.John Schmidtlein, a lawyer for Google, retorted that the company's revenue from digital advertising in the US has been declining over time. He bragged about the advertising prowess of Amazon, Facebook and Instagram at Meta, and TikTok from ByteDance.Schmidtlein argued that Google is "constrained" by rival platforms "where the eyeballs are," because advertisers know there are overlapping audiences and can spend their dollars elsewhere.Mehta stated that the platform's "substitute-ability" for advertisers was a crucial matter that needed to be settled by the court.He also asserted that Google was continually moving to innovate its search advertising products. "If Google is a monopolist, why improve anything? Why not just jack the price up?" he told the court. He later argued that "Google has won with a superior product."In a trial that began on September 12, the Justice Department has relentlessly pressed its claims that the dominant search engine is a monopolist that has unlawfully abused its position to increase profits.Testimony was given by witnesses from Verizon, Samsung Electronics, the business that makes Android handsets, and Google itself regarding the corporation's yearly payments ($26.3 billion in 2021) to maintain its dominant market position and make sure that its search is the default on smartphones and browsers. GOOGLE'S TRIAL CONCLUDES ON ALLEGATIONS OF ILLEGAL CONTROL IN WEB SEARCH, RELATED ADVERTISING
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