Google CEO Sundar Pichai was grilled Monday concerning the company’s attempts to maintain internal chat logs private during his widely anticipated appearance on the witness stand on the landmark federal antitrust trial.
Justice Department attorneys pressed Pichai to elucidate his handling of now-infamous internal group chat from 2021, during which he asked a Google worker to “change the setting of this group to history off.”
Nine seconds later, Pichai attempted to delete the request, as The Post previously reported.
Pichai downplayed his actions, telling the court he only requested history be turned off in that instance in order that he could discuss confidential details about an upcoming Google Cloud event — and “very rarely” does so basically.
“This isn’t even close, remotely, to anything covered by this litigation,” Pichai said of the chat, in line with Bloomberg. “I take great care to comply with all litigation holds. I never use chat to have substantial discussions on material topics.”
Pichai was essentially the most high-profile witness up to now within the Google antitrust trial, where the feds have accused the Big Tech giant of spending billions of dollars per 12 months – including greater than $26 billion in 2021 – to take care of its search engine because the default setting on most devices and construct an illegal monopoly over online search.
During his opening statement, DOJ attorney Ken Dintzer alleged that Google had “destroyed documents for years because they knew their conduct violated the antitrust laws.”
In a previous court filing from February, the DOJ had slammed Google over revelations that it mechanically destroyed worker messages after 24 hours.
Pichai told the court that he has since taken motion to finish that policy.
The automated deletion policy was first introduced by Google’s chief legal officer Kent Walker in 2008. In an email on the time, Walker noted that “Google continues to be within the midst of several significant legal and regulatory matters, including government review of our cope with Yahoo!”
Pichai acknowledged he had received that email, though he didn’t change into CEO until 2015.
“Once I became CEO that is the way it worked,” Pichai said.
Pichai also defended Google’s decision to pursue default search engine deals – most notably with Apple – as a obligatory move in a highly competitive market during his testimony.
He described internal concerns in 2016 that Apple would begin to send user search queries on its Safari browser to other platforms, comparable to Amazon, unless Google retained its default status.
When asked about Google’s billions in annual spending on default deals, Pichai acknowledged, “We definitely see value.”
Pichai also jabbed at rival Microsoft, whose CEO Satya Nadella had earlier referred to the notion of consumer alternative as “bogus” because of the prevalence of Google’s search engine.
Pichai said the net browser market “had form of stagnated” when Google first introduced its Chrome browser product in 2008.
“They (Microsoft) weren’t that incented to enhance the browser,” Pichai said, adding that Chrome was a “pretty dramatic improvement” over Microsoft’s browser on the time.
With Post wires
Google CEO Sundar Pichai was grilled Monday concerning the company’s attempts to maintain internal chat logs private during his widely anticipated appearance on the witness stand on the landmark federal antitrust trial.
Justice Department attorneys pressed Pichai to elucidate his handling of now-infamous internal group chat from 2021, during which he asked a Google worker to “change the setting of this group to history off.”
Nine seconds later, Pichai attempted to delete the request, as The Post previously reported.
Pichai downplayed his actions, telling the court he only requested history be turned off in that instance in order that he could discuss confidential details about an upcoming Google Cloud event — and “very rarely” does so basically.
“This isn’t even close, remotely, to anything covered by this litigation,” Pichai said of the chat, in line with Bloomberg. “I take great care to comply with all litigation holds. I never use chat to have substantial discussions on material topics.”
Pichai was essentially the most high-profile witness up to now within the Google antitrust trial, where the feds have accused the Big Tech giant of spending billions of dollars per 12 months – including greater than $26 billion in 2021 – to take care of its search engine because the default setting on most devices and construct an illegal monopoly over online search.
During his opening statement, DOJ attorney Ken Dintzer alleged that Google had “destroyed documents for years because they knew their conduct violated the antitrust laws.”
In a previous court filing from February, the DOJ had slammed Google over revelations that it mechanically destroyed worker messages after 24 hours.
Pichai told the court that he has since taken motion to finish that policy.
The automated deletion policy was first introduced by Google’s chief legal officer Kent Walker in 2008. In an email on the time, Walker noted that “Google continues to be within the midst of several significant legal and regulatory matters, including government review of our cope with Yahoo!”
Pichai acknowledged he had received that email, though he didn’t change into CEO until 2015.
“Once I became CEO that is the way it worked,” Pichai said.
Pichai also defended Google’s decision to pursue default search engine deals – most notably with Apple – as a obligatory move in a highly competitive market during his testimony.
He described internal concerns in 2016 that Apple would begin to send user search queries on its Safari browser to other platforms, comparable to Amazon, unless Google retained its default status.
When asked about Google’s billions in annual spending on default deals, Pichai acknowledged, “We definitely see value.”
Pichai also jabbed at rival Microsoft, whose CEO Satya Nadella had earlier referred to the notion of consumer alternative as “bogus” because of the prevalence of Google’s search engine.
Pichai said the net browser market “had form of stagnated” when Google first introduced its Chrome browser product in 2008.
“They (Microsoft) weren’t that incented to enhance the browser,” Pichai said, adding that Chrome was a “pretty dramatic improvement” over Microsoft’s browser on the time.
With Post wires
