Ignore our scale and look at our tech, Google says as it begins its defence

Google chief says monopoly is not why it's winning the search race, and argues AI is about to take over anyway...

Google has begun its defence in the landmark antitrust trial that will decide its fate, and the future of the internet.

The first witness it called was former NASA scientist and Stanford PhD Pandu Nayak, who is now one of the four boffins who run Google search.

He claimed that it was awesome tech that made Google better than rival search engines, not its restrictive multi-billion default deals with Apple and Samsung.

As The New York Times put it: “While the Justice Department says Google has squeezed partners and made expensive deals to maintain its search dominance, the company has a more genteel story to tell.”

And so it was.

Mr Nayak testified that Google’s size was less relevant than its tech, because Google’s AI was now so good that user data was less important.