Google chief executive Sundar Pichai told a federal judge on Wednesday that a government proposal to break up the company would hobble the business, as he aimed to stave off drastic changes to fix an illegal monopoly in online search.
Judge Amit P. Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled last year that Google had broken the law to maintain a search monopoly. This month, he convened a hearing to decide on the measures, known as remedies, that would be put in place to address the illegal behavior.
As the company’s second witness, Mr. Pichai was called to make the case that the court should avoid the government’s aggressive solutions, including forcing Google to sell its popular Chrome web browser and share data with rivals. Mr. Pichai said that the government’s proposal would lead the company to make fewer investments in new technology if it needs to share the benefits with its competitors for a minimal fee.
“The combination of all the remedies, I think, makes it unviable to invest in the R&D the way we have for the past three decades, to continue to innovate and build Google search,” he said, referring to research and development.
Mr. Pichai is the highest profile witness expected to testify at the landmark three-week hearing, which could rebalance the power dynamic in Silicon Valley. The tech industry is locked in a race to develop internet products powered by artificial intelligence, and new restrictions on Google’s business could supercharge its rivals’ efforts and hamper its own.
The Google search case is also the first major test of American government efforts to restrain tech giants’ enormous power over commerce, communications and information online. A federal judge in Virginia ruled this month that Google was also a monopolist in some online advertising technology.
The Federal Trade Commission is currently squaring off with Meta in a trial over whether its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp illegally snuffed out nascent competitors. Additional federal antitrust lawsuits against Apple and Amazon are expected to go to trial in the coming years.
The Justice Department filed its Google search lawsuit in 2020, during President Trump’s first term.
Government lawyers argued during a 2023 trial that Google had locked out other search engines by paying companies like Apple, Samsung and Mozilla to be the search engine that comes up automatically in web browsers and on smartphones. The company paid $26.3 billion as part of those deals in 2021, according to testimony at the time.
Judge Mehta ruled against the company in August. Last week, he opened the three-week hearing to determine remedies.
The Justice Department’s proposal is wide-ranging. The government argues that Google needs to sell Chrome because it automatically sends user queries to the company’s search engine.
In Mr. Pichai’s testimony, which lasted roughly 90 minutes, he said the company had invested heavily in Chrome and was best situated to ensure the app was protected from cyberattacks. Mr. Pichai, who helped to develop Chrome, bristled when a government lawyer questioned whether he could predict how a future owner of the browser would handle cybersecurity.
“Given my deep knowledge of the space and a general understanding of what other companies’ capabilities and commitments are around web security, I do think I’m able to speak on it,” he said.
The government also wants Google to share its search results with rivals. Under the proposal, other search engines would be able to gain access to data about what Google users were searching for and what websites they clicked on.
Mr. Pichai called the forced data sharing required by the proposal “de facto divestiture” of the company’s intellectual property that would “allow anyone to completely reverse engineer, end to end, every aspect of our technology stack.”
Google’s proposal is more narrow. It said that it should be allowed to continue to pay other companies for its search engine to get prime placement. But it also said that some of those deals should be up for renegotiation every year, and that smartphone manufacturers should have more freedom when deciding what Google apps to install on their devices.
Judge Mehta asked Mr. Pichai how other search engines could compete with Google if the company was still able to pay for its own search product to get prime placement.
“I can hardly think of exceptions to ‘the best product wins out,’” Mr. Pichai later added.
David McCabe is a Times reporter who covers the complex legal and policy issues created by the digital economy and new technologies.
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