WASHINGTON (CN) — Twenty days into the antitrust trial against Google, tensions flared as the tech giant's attorneys tried to poke holes in the testimony of a former senior marketing executive who said Google had a "dominant," "one-sided" relationship with his new employer, Booking.com.
Arjan Dijk, now the senior vice president and chief marketing officer for the travel site, said companies like Booking.com are forced to advertise with Google, where he worked for nearly 11 years as vice president of global marketing, to reach customers: It controls so much of the search market that working only with rival search engines, like Bing or DuckDuckGo, is basically ineffective.
Google defense attorney Michael Sommer of Wilson, Sonsini, Goodrich & Rosati sharply challenged Dijk’s characterization of Google as a “dominant” partner. He pointed to Dijk's refusal during a deposition to answer a Google attorney's question about whether a company is entitled to make a profit.
Dijk had refused to answer, he said Wednesday, because the question was stupid — and then responded to the attorney's aggression in kind, asking what Sommer would do if he didn’t answer.
“Are you so bitter at your previous employer that you’d challenge Google’s counsel to a fight?” Sommer retorted, prompting a swift rebuke from U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta. The judge used the heated moment in the courtroom as an opportunity to take a break.
Sommer sought to paint Dijk as biased against Google, and to discredit his direct testimony conducted by Steven Kaufmann, an attorney for the state of Colorado — one of 38 states that each joined the United States government as a plaintiff.
Dijk likened Google’s search results page to a courtyard, enclosed by four main gates — all controlled by Google — where a group of potential customers are searching for travel sites. Since businesses like Booking.com rely on Google's "gates" to reach the customers, the search advertising company can name its price. It can even place distractions — like more advertisements — just within the doors, so customers are drawn to search results that ultimately make more money for Google, rather than third parties like Booking.com.
"The problem is," Dijk said, "it is a one-sided relationship. We are in a benevolent dictatorship, and we get [these prices] imposed on us."
Bing has only a tiny door to the courtyard, in Dijk's analogy. It may be cheaper for a business to gain access, but so few customers will come through the door that it's not worth using.
Google holds an overwhelming 83.8% market share over all desktop searches, compared to Bing’s 8.6%, most of which comes from Microsoft desktop computers that come already loaded with Bing. On mobile devices, Google’s market share over searches jumps to 96.5%, compared to Bing’s 0.5% and Yahoo’s 0.6%, as of January 2023.
Along with the stronghold, distractions in front of the "gates" have only ramped up. Google places up to four ads on any page before a user can see a non-advertisement link, or “natural" search result. That means users, especially those browsing on their phones, have to scroll multiple times to see the first natural result, Dijk testified.
He said the excess ads have given way to a new version of an adage that “you may as well be dead on the second page of Google.” The original stems from users' propensity to enter a new search rather than move to the second tier of results.
Justice Department attorneys indicated they have two witnesses left to call before ending their portion of the case and handing the reins to attorneys for the individual states. Google will likely begin its portion of the case in November, depending on how quickly the states can move through their portion.
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