Google CEO Tells Court Search Dominance Is Result of 'Fierce Competition'

Google Chief Executive Sundar Pichai took the stand Monday in the tech giant's antitrust trial, a pivotal moment in a case that could result in major changes to the company's search engine. From a report: Pichai described Google's search dominance as the result of its innovation and early investment in its Chrome browser. "We realized early on that browsers are critical to how people are able to navigate and use the web," Pichai said during questioning by Google lawyer John Schmidtlein. "It became very clear early on that if you make the user's experience better, they would use the web more, they would enjoy using the web more, and they would search more in Google as well," Pichai said. [...] The nonjury trial is being heard by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, who could ultimately order a breakup or other changes to Google's business practices. Schmidtlein, Google's lead counsel, questioned Pichai about the deal at the heart of the case: the search giant's contract with Apple that makes it the default search engine on Apple's Safari web browser. The Apple deal "makes it very, very seamless and easy for users to use our services," Pichai said. "We know that making it the default will lead to increased usage of our products and services, particularly Google search in this case. So there is clear value in that and that's what we were looking for."

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