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Google Tells Judges It’s So Popular It’s Bing’s Top Search Term

The tech giant has asked EU judges to overturn a record $5 billion fine and strike down a 2018 antitrust order.

Google is so successful that it’s the most searched for term on Microsoft Corp.’s Bing search engine, the company’s lawyer told a European Union court on Tuesday.

“We have submitted evidence showing that the most common search query on Bing is by far Google,” Alfonso Lamadrid, a lawyer for the Alphabet Inc. unit, said at the EU’s General Court in Luxembourg.

The tech giant has asked EU judges to overturn a record $5 billion fine and strike down a 2018 antitrust order that said Google unfairly pushed its search app on mobile phones running its Android software. The European Commission alleged that Google made a strategic decision to squeeze out potential rivals and build near-monopoly market shares.

Google argued that conclusion is unfair.

“People use Google because they choose to, not because they are forced to,” Lamadrid said. “Google’s market share in general search is consistent with consumer surveys showing that 95% of users prefer Google to rival search engines.”

©2021 Bloomberg L.P.