United States of America v. Google LLC., Court Filing, retrieved on April 30, 2024, is part of HackerNoon’s Legal PDF Series. You can jump to any part of this filing here. This part is 7 of 37.
B. General Search Competition
1. Search Competitors
73. General search competitors—all of which are significantly smaller than Google in the United States—include Bing, Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, You.com, Ask.com, Brave, and Ecosia. Tr. 1232:22–1233:18 (Dischler (Google)); Tr. 8093:10–8094:5 (Gomes (Google)); Tr. 2167:21– 2168:4; (Giannandrea (Apple)); Tr. 2169:17–22 (Giannandrea (Apple)); Tr. 1942:11–21 (Weinberg) (DuckDuckGo)); UPX0599 at -698 (2008 email by Barton (Google) identifying Ask.com as offering web search); UPX0913 at -017 (Dr. Varian’s presentation listing Google, Bing, and DuckDuckGo as “general purpose” search engines). Outside of the United States, GSEs include Yandex (in Russia), Baidu (in China), and Naver (in South Korea). Tr. 2720:5– 2721:5 (Parakhin (Microsoft)); Tr. 7124:24–7125:14 (Baker (Mozilla)).
a) Independent Versus Syndicated Engines
74. Search syndication occurs when one search engine is powered by, and receives results from, another in a white-label manner. Tr. 3520:13–22 (Nadella (Microsoft)); Tr. 320:10– 20 (Barton (Google)) (“[S]yndication . . . is when you’re powering someone else’s search.”). GSEs, which are typically free for users and funded by the sale of ads, can operate independently or through a syndication agreement with an independent GSE. Tr. 7345:8–19 (Raghavan (Google)) (Revenue from advertising supports Google’s search engine.); Tr. 184:11–12 (Varian (Google)) (GSEs are funded by the sale of ads); UPX0119 at -534 (Google analyzing its search syndication partnership with Yahoo in the U.S.).
75. Google and Bing are the only meaningful companies that independently own all the elements of a GSE. UPX0332 at -673 (Google listing only itself and Microsoft (Bing) as “general purpose search engines”); UPX0266 at -983 (Giannandrea (Apple)) (“there are so few serious contenders in [general web search] because of the depth of R&D needed”); UPX0333 at -116 (Varian declaring that “Google is [an] ad supported general purpose search engine. There aren’t very many of these in part because they are very expensive to build and maintain”); Des. Tr. 105:18–106:24 (Connell (Microsoft) Dep.) (“there are only a few search systems on the planet that allow you to understand queries and crawl the web and index the Internet”).
76. Nearly all other GSEs in the United States syndicate results from Google or Bing. Tr. 2061:18–2062:9 (Weinberg (DuckDuckGo)) (when considering syndication partners, DuckDuckGo looked at [redacted]); Des. Tr. 279:14–17; 279:19–25; 280:2–7 (Stein (IAC) Dep.) (Ask.com syndicates from Google and Bing); Tr. 5916:10–19 (Whinston (Pls. Expert)) (including DuckDuckGo and Yahoo in market share statistics is conservative as they syndicate results from Bing and are not clearly independent competitors). Yahoo and DuckDuckGo, the two major syndicated GSEs in the United States, syndicate from Microsoft’s Bing. Tr. 3520:13–22 (Nadella (Microsoft)); Des. Tr. 34:25–35:18, 35:24–36:8 (Ramalingam (Yahoo) Dep.) (although Yahoo used to crawl and index the web, it now gets results from Microsoft).
b) Differentiation In General Search Engines
77. Bing and Yahoo offer general search engine experiences similar to Google. Bing is Google’s most significant competitor among GSEs. Tr. 8094:8–10 (Gomes (Google)); UPX0888 at -852 (Bing mimics Google in “look-and-feel” and if “Apple switches to Bing” from Google as its default, “most people won’t even notice a difference.”); Des. Tr. 216:3–217:2 (Baker (Mozilla) Dep.) (Bing, Yahoo, and Google would be products able to “fulfill the search engine function” in the Firefox browser.). DuckDuckGo, however, offers a GSE that emphasizes privacy. Tr. 1945:9–1946:4, 1947:3–1948:25 (Weinberg (DuckDuckGo)); UPX0408 at -030–36 (identifying DuckDuckGo as a “privacy-focus[]ed search engine[]”).
78. Neeva offered a different approach to user privacy: a subscription-based GSE with no ads. Tr. 3671:2–3672:11 (Ramaswamy (Neeva)) (Neeva sought to create a search engine not beholden to advertisers). Specifically, Neeva differentiated itself through privacy, personalization, generative AI, and being ads-free. Tr. 3718:25–3719:16 (Ramaswamy (Neeva)).
2. Potential Search Competitors
79. Tools and services that are designed to search the contents of mobile apps are not substitutes for general search services today. Tr. 5851:5–5852:5 (Whinston (Pls. Expert)) (discussing Branch and UPX0694). Such app-search tools do not require their developers to index the web, and their core service does not involve returning web results in response to user queries. Tr. 2957:3–18 (Austin (Branch)) (Branch does not indexed the web); Tr. 847:23–848:9 (Kolotouros (Google)) (on-device search explores what is on the phone, even when it is not connected to the web).
80. For example, Branch offers an app-search tool that includes, among other things, an on-device search service. Tr. 2894:3–18 (Austin (Branch)) (Branch allows a user to search across app pages and then be directed to the app); Tr. 2789:12–18 (Kartasheva (Google)) (Branch indexes app content to allow users to search within those apps and can show customized ads to those users based on user activity.); id. 2796:20–2797:17 (Branch uses deeplinking); Tr. 4497:2–13 (Chang (Samsung Next)) (explaining that Branch was integrated with S Finder, Samsung’s on-device search product).
81. Some large distributors also provide search features. For example, although Apple does not operate a GSE, Tr. 2206:2–3 (Giannandrea (Apple)), it provides users certain search capabilities through Spotlight, Siri, and Suggestions, supra ¶¶ 8–10. Apple’s goal is to “give answers when we ha[ve] them” and “get people where they’re going faster[.]” Id. 2282:14–20. Apple has invested significantly in search technology to enable these features and could leverage this technology to answer more queries in the future. Infra ¶¶ 1093–1119 (§ VIII.B.3.a).
3. Evolution From Desktop To Mobile
82. Before 2010, very little if any general searches occurred on mobile phones. Tr. 3097:13–3099:03 (Tinter (Microsoft)) (When Bing first launched in 2009, most searches were on desktop); Tr. 316:1–9 (Barton (Google)) (When he joined Google in 2004, people used feature phones, which were “very basic phones” from companies like Nokia and Motorola).
Since 2010, the number of mobile phone searches has grown rapidly. Id. 317:6–20 (between 2011 and 2013, mobile search became “a very significant portion of all search.”); Tr. 3663:7–18 (Nadella (Microsoft)) (in the early 2010s, mobile grew to be “the dominant platform” for search); UPX0006 at -330 (2019 Google deck showing actual and projected percentages of mobile, desktop, and tablet revenues and queries for 2018–2023).
83. Today, more than half of all general searches occur on mobile phones. Tr. 3097:13–3099:03 (Tinter (Microsoft)); UPX0006 at -330 (Google 2019 “Search State of the Union” with chart showing actual and projected percentages of mobile, desktop, and tablet revenues and queries for 2018–2023). “[T]he user behavior dynamics on mobile tend to be different than they are on PC, right.” Tr. 3102:12–3104:25 (Tinter (Microsoft)); Tr. 329:21– 330:1 (Barton (Google)).
Some of this differentiation is a function of smaller screen real estate, and lack of keyboard. Tr. 9764:2–18 (Murphy (Def. Expert)) (conceding that a difficulty exists in changing the default on mobile devices because it lacks a keyboard and the screens are smaller); Tr. 1628:25–1629:4 (Roszak (Google)) (discussing UPX1050, agreeing that keyboards and screen size are different on mobile); Tr. 3102:12–3104:25 (Tinter (Microsoft)).
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