In the ongoing antitrust trial, an economist’s testimony has stated that Alphabet Inc.’s (NASDAQ:GOOG) (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google faces competition for online search queries from a range of online entities beyond just common search engines.
What Happened: Mark Israel, an economist with FTI Consulting Inc. asserted in his testimony that Google’s competition extends to Amazon.com Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), Expedia Group Inc. (NASDAQ:EXPE), and Yelp Inc. (NYSE:YELP), as well as others including General Motors Co. (NYSE:GM), Mustang parts retailer CJ Pony Parts, and even the DC federal court, Bloomberg reported.
According to Israel, the Justice Department’s comparison of Google to other general search engines, such as Microsoft Corporation’s (NASDAQ:MSFT) Bing and DuckDuckGo, is flawed as Google’s competition varies based on the nature of the user’s query.
For shopping queries, Amazon is a competitor; for travel, it’s Expedia; and for local information, Yelp is considered competition.
These claims surface amid allegations by the Justice Department that Google has unlawfully maintained dominance ...