Microsoft CEO appears in court to back Google antitrust case, focus on exclusive content deal

On the afternoon of October 3, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said on Monday Eastern Time that major technology giants are competing to obtain a large amount of content needed to train artificial intelligence. However, Google has resented its practice of locking up content in high-priced exclusivity deals with publishers. Nadella is testifying in a major trial against Google since the U.S. government indicted it in 1998. The first major antitrust case since Microsoft. Nadella testified that tech giants are scrambling to build content libraries to train their own large language models, which "reminds me of the early days of distribution protocols."

The distribution agreement becomes the centerpiece of the U.S. Department of Justice’s antitrust crackdown on Google. Google holds 90% of the search market and pays smartphone makers like Apple and wireless carriers like AT&T $10 billion a year to be the default search engine on their devices. The U.S. Department of Justice believes this behavior violates the law

Google has used its influence in the search market to become a heavyweight in the lucrative advertising market, thereby boosting profit margins

Nadella said developing artificial intelligence requires computing power (servers) and data to train the software. "We're willing to invest money, there's no problem," he said of the servers. If other companies block content through exclusive agreements with large content companies, that's "problematic." However, he did not explicitly mention Google. "When I met with the publishers, they said Google paid the money and signed the exclusivity agreement, and you have to offer the same conditions," Nadella said.

Rejected by Apple

Nadella also revealed that Microsoft had hoped to set Bing as the default search engine for Apple smartphones, but unfortunately it was rejected

Google Lead lawyer John Schmidlin reminded Nadella that Microsoft sometimes sets it as the default search engine on computers and mobile phones, but many users still bypass Bing and choose to use Google. John said , Microsoft failed to gain a foothold in Bing due to a series of strategic mistakes, including failing to invest in developing hardware and talent to improve Bing, and failing to recognize the potential of the mobile revolution.

John also said that Microsoft has signed default search engine agreements with many companies before, including Verizon in 2008 and BlackBerry and Nokia in 2011, but the end result is the same: users bypass Bing, Most of the searching was done through Google.

Nadella admitted that although Bing is the default search engine on most laptops using Microsoft systems, its market share is still less than 20%

When it comes to Google’s On the dominance of the search market, he added: "A lot of people wake up in the morning, brush their teeth and start searching on Google."

qualityquestion

Judge Amit Mehta asked Nadella: Since Microsoft’s products are of poor quality, why would Apple consider switching to Bing?

The judge showed keen interest in Google's argument that it was dominant because its products were of better quality, not because of the benefits of the breach

Nader Pullman became Microsoft's CEO in 2014. The tech giant has already weathered federal antitrust lawsuits before this. The lawsuit ended in a settlement in 2001, forcing Microsoft to cease some business practices and opening up opportunities for companies such as Google. As Google became the industry's leading search engine, the two companies also became bitter enemies. Both sides have browsers, search engines, email services, and other overlapping services. Recently, the two companies have also competed with each other in the field of artificial intelligence. Microsoft invested in OpenAI, while Google developed the Bard artificial intelligence chatbot

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