Google is laying off hundreds of workers as a U.S. inquiry has begun to probe into the business practices of the big tech company, after it moved on major mobile carriers in an effort to keep Microsoft out of their search engine results.
Earlier today, it was revealed that the Google layoffs are not seen as a widespread axing of staff. However, it’s not known how many people are affected in AUS by the move.
Earlier in the year, Alphabet, Google’s parent company, eliminated around 12,000 jobs, and Meta, Microsoft, and Amazon also significantly downsized. Still, Google is the first big tech company to announce layoffs this quarter.
Unemployment rates are increasing according to Challenger, Gray & Christmas, who claim layoffs in the U.S. surged to nearly four times compared to 2022. In Australia, August unemployment grew by 1.9% to 11% or about 1.7 million Australians, according to Morgan employment series data.
On the legal front, former Google partnership exec Chris Barton appeared before the court, saying the number of executives occupied with winning default status with mobile carriers went up significantly during his time at the company.
District Judge Amit P. Mehta
Barton managed partnerships with Verizon and AT&T from 2004 to 2011, and during the probe, he said that Google would aggressively press for exclusive status with carriers and the tech giant was aware consumers would have a “difficult time finding or changing to Google” if Microsoft’s Bing service were their default search engine.
According to the feds, Google compensated companies like Apple and Samsung by “more than $10 billion per year” to attain a 91% share of the search engine market.
During his opening statements, Google attorney John Schmidtlein denied the government’s argument that the tech giant has an illegal monopoly because users opt for Google search on purpose due to its superiority.
Explaining away the compensation paid to companies, Schmidtlein claims the money paid to partners was for standard business practices and that consumers have the choice to simply change their default search engine.
