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A12 TECHNOLOGY
Tuesday 3 OcTOber 2023

Microsoft CEO says unfair practices by Google

led to its dominance as a search engine

By Suman Naishadham
Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Mi-
crosoft CEO Satya Nadella
said Monday 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 an-
titrust trial against Google's Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella speaks, Feb. 7, 2023, in Redmond,
parent company, Alpha- Wash
bet. The Justice Depart- Associated Press
ment alleges Google has
abused the dominance of had led to dramatic shifts lions of dollars each year
its ubiquitous search engine in its market share. Google to lock in its search engine
to throttle competition and has argued that artificial as the go-to place for find-
innovation at the expense intelligence programs like ing online information on
of consumers, allegations chatbot ChatGPT have in- smartphones and web
that echo a similar case creased competition in the browsers.
brought against Microsoft search engine market. In an ironic twist, the
in the late 1990s. “Even the app store down- constraints and distrac-
Nadella said Google's dom- loads are interesting but tions posed by the gov-
inance was due to agree- not ... something you write ernment’s antitrust case
ments that made it the home about,” Nadella against Microsoft helped
default browser on smart- said about Microsoft's re- provide a springboard for
phones and computers. vamped search engine Google to turn its search
He downplayed the idea enhanced with artificial in- engine into a dominant
that artificial intelligence telligence. force. By the time Micro-
or more niche search en- Nadella was called to the soft started its scramble to
gines like Amazon or social witness stand as the big- develop its own search en-
media sites have meaning- gest U.S. antitrust trial in gine, Google had already
fully changed the market in the past quarter-century become synonymous with
which Microsoft competes moved into its fourth week looking things up on the in-
with Google. of testimony before U.S. ternet.
Nadella said users funda- District Judge Amit Mehta, But Microsoft nevertheless
mentally don't have much who isn’t expected to issue has poured billions of dol-
choice in switching out of a decision in the case until lars trying to mount a seri-
default web browsers on next year. ous challenge to Google
cell phones and computers. The Justice Department's with Bing and, at one point,
Google's lead litigator John antitrust case against even tried to buy Yahoo for
Schmidtlein questioned Google centers on deals more than $40 billion in a
Nadella about instances the company struck with bid that was rejected while
when users switched from Apple and other device Steve Ballmer was still the
Bing to Google even when makers to use Google’s software maker’s CEO.
Microsoft's search engine search engine. Nadella, who was working
had default status on their In the 1990s, Microsoft at Microsoft during the late
devices — arguing that Mi- faced accusations it set 1990s antitrust showdown
crosoft made missteps with up its Windows software in with the Justice Depart-
Bing that prevented it from ways that walled off ap- ment, succeeded Ballmer
rivaling Google. plications made by other as CEO in 2014. During his
When questioned, Nadella tech companies, just as tenure, he has steered to
denied that Bing's adop- Google is now facing ac- Microsoft huge gains in
tion of artificial intelligence cusations of shelling out bil- personal and cloud com-
puting that have boosted
the company’s stock price
by nearly nine -fold since
he took over while creat-
ing more than $2 trillion in
shareholder wealth.
Despite all that success, he
hasn’t been able to make
any significant inroads in
search against Google,
with Bing still a distant sec-
ond in the market.q