‘Consumers Aren’t Stupid’: Google Lawyer Rejects EU Market Abuse Ruling

LUXEMBOURG—Billions of people use Google because it’s the best, not because of deals the company made to stay competitive, Google’s lawyer said on Friday, wrapping up a week of testimony as the U.S. tech giant fights a record $5 billion antitrust fine. The European Commission hit Alphabet’s Google with a 4.34 billion euro ($5 billion) fine in 2018 for using its Android mobile operating system to thwart rivals and cement its dominance in general internet searching from 2011. At issue are deals requiring phone makers to pre-install the Google Search app and the Chrome browser app together with Google Play, as well deals blocking some variants of Android. “The reason why billions of people choose Google as their search tool every day is not because of an abuse of dominance. It’s because it’s the best,” lawyer Meredith Pickford told the EU’s General Court, the bloc’s second highest. Pickford said the …

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