Microsoft accuses Google of "playing dirty" in online search

Microsoft Corporation has accused Google of abusing its monopoly position in the online search engine sector to prevent other competitors from developing and competing in this field.

Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella made the accusation at a hearing in Washington on October 2 to hear a lawsuit against Google over the issue.

In separate lawsuits, the U.S. Justice Department and dozens of U.S. states accuse Google of abusing its dominance in online search, stifling competition by striking deals with telecom carriers and smartphone makers to make Google Search the default or sole search engine on products used by millions of consumers.

The claims were consolidated into a class action.

Previously, the US Department of Justice accused Google of spending $10 billion a year on Apple and other companies to maintain its monopoly position. Google currently accounts for 90% of the global search market share.

For his part, CEO Nadella affirmed that since 2009, Microsoft's Bing search engine has been trying to build its own market share to compete with Google.

Bing, however, has never been able to compete with Google, largely due to the giant's arrangement with Apple to protect Google's dominance in online search. "It's hard to grow without market share," the Microsoft CEO stressed.

CEO Microsoft also argued that Alphabet Inc.'s launch of a new chatbot service called "Bard" earlier this month would not help cement Google's dominance in online search.

Meanwhile, in the race for position with Google, Microsoft in early May officially launched a version of its Bing search engine and Edge browser that integrates innovative artificial intelligence (AI).

In addition, Mr. Nadella also accused Google of restricting technology competitors from accessing huge data stores to develop artificial intelligence (AI).

This restriction is implemented through exclusive agreements between Google and content providers that play a key role in training creative AI models.

In response to Microsoft CEO, Google's general counsel, John Schmidtlein, argued that there were times when Bing was the default search engine on computers and mobile phones. However, the majority of users still preferred to use Google and ignored Bing.

Attorney Schmidtlein also argued that Microsoft made a series of strategic mistakes that prevented Bing from gaining a foothold in the market. These mistakes included not investing in servers or engineering teams to improve quality.

According to legal experts, the antitrust lawsuit against Google is the largest since the US Department of Justice targeted the world's largest software company Microsoft more than two decades ago over the dominance of the Windows operating system.

In its arguments, Google firmly opposed the lawsuit, asserting that the success of its search engine is due to quality improvements and large-scale investments over many years.

Judge Amit P. Mehta will deliver his verdict after hearings expected to last about three months.

Judge Mehta could dismiss the case or order drastic action, such as stopping Google’s business practices or changing how the company operates. Either outcome could be appealed by either side, and the case could drag on for years.