Reporter challenges court as Google seeks to make trial secret

Google’s antitrust trial of the century took a dramatic twist yesterday as Google fought for key evidence to be kept secret.

The search giant successfully persuaded Judge Amit Mehta to hear the Department of Justice’s examination of Google Finance VP Mike Roszak behind closed doors.

It’s a shame because Roszak was just starting to get interesting. Before the doors were slammed shut, he revealed that when Apple dropped Google Maps on iPhones, Google regained just 40% of its mobile traffic.

Google used the switch as “a data point”, he said, when modelling the impact if Apple replaced Google’s search engine as the default on Apple’s Safari browser.

In June 2020, Roszak e-mailed his supervisor. “Almost 2 years later we were at ~40% of the prior peak (and assumed the actual loss was greater since Apple Maps usage was also growing across this time).”

Great insights, but then… crickets. The public and reporters were kicked out and the evidence went private.

It’s not clear now how much of the res…