On its way to the top of the online search market, Google is playing hardball with Apple (AAPL) and Samsung Electronics (005930.SE). The two partners are key to making Google's search engine the default choice on most smartphones around the world.
A landmark antitrust trial that began this month in Washington, D.C., has provided the public with details of Google's tactics. The case offers a rare public glimpse into how Google has solidified its position as the main entry point to the Internet. The Justice Department said Google maintained that position through illegal and restrictive agreements.
According to the evidence presented at trial, Google has used its leverage in conversations with Apple and other partners, showing the various tactics Google uses to maintain its share of the search market. Google has always defended its position in the search engine market, saying its products are superior.
Google has about 90 per cent of the online search market, giving it unparalleled insight into the Internet browsing behaviour of billions of people. Google's search engine powers its advertising business, which brought in $162 billion in revenue last year, accounting for most of Google parent Alphabet's revenue.


In 2005, Google offered Apple a cut of the advertising revenue if Apple made Google's search engine the default option on its desktop computers.

The Justice Department's case revolves around Google's contracts with Apple Inc. and other phone makers to automatically direct users to its search engine. Google began signing these agreements back in 2001 and offered to share the revenue generated when those users clicked on ads.
Apple began licensing Google's search engine for the release of its Safari web browser in 2003. In 2005, Google offered Apple a cut of the advertising revenue if Apple made Google's search engine the default option on its desktop computers.
Two years later, Apple asked Google to modify the contract to allow it to offer users multiple default search engine options, according to an email filed by the Justice Department. Apple approached Yahoo (YHOO) about it.
In response, according to an internal email exchange involving former Google chief executive Eric Schmidt and co-founder Sergey Brin, Google told Apple: "No revenue sharing without default search." Kenneth Dintzer, the Justice Department's lead lawyer in the court, said Apple then dropped the idea and never raised it again.
A Google spokesperson pointed to a previous statement that said the company strives to be the default search engine so users can easily access its services, and that Apple has said it chose Google because it is the best search engine. Apple declined to comment.
The U.S. Department of Justice presented evidence first in the case. The case will be decided without a jury by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, who could end up ordering Google out of the agreement or requiring it to make other changes to its business practices. Mehta allows for extensive masking and sealing of trial records, which means that the public has only limited access to the full content of the Mehta presented to the judge.


Gabriel Weinberg, CEO of search engine provider DuckDuckGo, testified on Thursday that Google's default agreement actually hindered DuckDuckGo's ability to gain market share.

On Tuesday, the trial resumed with testimony from Eddy Cue, Apple's senior vice president of services. In a portion of his testimony released to the public, Mr. Cue said Apple's current deal with Google was' essentially the same 'as it was in 2002, and that Google was chosen as the default search engine on Apple devices because its products were better.
Gabriel Weinberg, CEO of DuckDuckGo, a search engine provider that competes with Google, testified on Thursday that Google's default agreement actually hindered DuckDuckGo's ability to gain market share. DuckDuckGo tried to strike its own deal but gave up after trying for three years, he said.
Google argues that its business practices leave consumers a lot of choice and that partners choose its search engine because it is the best business decision. Google's lead defense lawyer, John Schmidtlein of the law firm Williams & Connolly, said in opening arguments that preventing Google from competing for the contract flouts U.S. antitrust law.
Harry First, a law professor at New York University who studies antitrust and has been following the case, said the government was trying to "show the significance of the tacit agreement step by step." He said the evidence showed that Google not only paid huge sums for these contracts, but also spent time and effort to ensure it got what it wanted.
In his opening statement for the government, Dintzer said that in 2013 Apple began using a service called Suggestions to provide users with alternative links to certain search queries in the Safari browser.
According to an email sent by Joan Braddi, Google's vice president of product partnerships, Google responded to Apple's move by amending the contract in September 2016, claiming that Apple "could not further expand on what it was already doing."
Dintzer said Google's move amounted to "a monopolist throwing his weight around."
According to an internal Google email presented in court, Google in 2021 analyzed the potential hit to Google if Apple switched to a different default search engine provider, calling it a "Code Red" scenario.
Google has also sparred with Samsung over changes the smartphone maker made to its mobile web browser. According to testimony subpoenaed by the Justice Department by Antonio Rangel, a professor of behavioral economics, Samsung made the design changes to make it easier for users to switch to the default search engine.
Google protested Samsung's move, saying it violated their agreement, and Samsung withdrew the change, Mr. Rangel said. Samsung did not respond to a request for comment.
Google also missed out on deals. At one point, major smartphone carriers AT&T Inc and Verizon Inc made Yahoo and Microsoft's Bing, respectively, the default search engine for Android phones, according to a 2011 email written by Chris Barton, a former Google executive and a witness called by the Justice Department.
Barton testified that in competing for deals, Google sometimes lost out to Yahoo because it did not offer the same percentage of revenue that Yahoo did. Barton said that in this case, he tried to convince potential partners that they could make more money with Google because they had this premium product.
Google and other companies have successfully demanded that large portions of the emails and presentations cited by the U.S. Department of Justice be obscured. Several witnesses testified for hours in closed-door sessions closed to the public.
Last week, Mehta asked the Justice Department to take down the material it had uploaded to a public website after Google alerted him to its presence.
Megan Gray, a former Federal Trade Commission lawyer who sued Google over privacy issues, said: "It is unusual to see such a wide range of closures, secrecy and content cover-ups in such a critical litigation."
Rangel said at the beginning of his second day of testimony that most of Google's search traffic on Android devices comes from a virtual box that is automatically placed on the home screen of a phone covered by the company's agreement.
Schmidtlein, a lawyer for Google, rose from his seat at the time and reminded witnesses not to reveal the company's proprietary data in open court.