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Google loses fight to hide 2021 money pit: $26B in default contracts

Accepted submission by Freeman at 2023-10-30 16:31:55 from the money money money dept.
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https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/10/google-paid-26b-for-default-contracts-in-2021-google-exec-testified/ [arstechnica.com]

On Friday, Google started defending its search business during the Justice Department's monopoly trial. Among the first witnesses called was Google's senior vice president responsible for search, Prabhakar Raghavan, who testified that Google's default agreements with makers of popular mobile phones and web browsers were "the company’s biggest cost" in 2021, Bloomberg Law reported [bloomberglaw.com].

Raghavan's testimony for the first time revealed that Google paid $26.3 billion in 2021 for default agreements, seemingly investing in default status for its search engine while raking in $146.4 billion in revenue from search advertising that year. Those numbers had increased "significantly" since 2014, Big Tech on Trial reported [twitter.com], when Google's search ad revenue was approximately 46 billion and traffic acquisition cost was approximately $7.1 billion.
[...]
Pichai will likely provide additional insights into how Google's smart investments are responsible for creating the search empire it maintains today, Reuters reported [reuters.com]. But he will also likely face the DOJ's inquiries into why Google invests so much in default agreements if it's not a critical part of the tech giant's strategy to stay ahead of the competition.

The DOJ is not likely to back down from its case that default agreements unfairly secured Google's search market dominance. On Friday, Big Tech on Trial reporter Yosef Weitzman—who has been posting updates from the trial on X—suggested [twitter.com] that things have gotten tense in the courtroom now that the "DOJ seems emboldened to push for more information to be public after Judge Mehta’s comments yesterday that not all numbers need to remain redacted."

According to Weitzman [twitter.com], the DOJ today pushed to "make public the 20 search queries Google makes the most revenue off of, as well as Google’s traffic acquisition costs related to search (the total amount of money Google paid to partners in search distribution revenue shares)."

Previously:
Google, DOJ Still Blocking Public Access to Monopoly Trial Docs, NYT Says [soylentnews.org] 20231020
Microsoft CEO Warns of "Nightmare" Future for AI If Google's Search Dominance Continues [soylentnews.org] 20231004


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