MADRID, 12 Sep. (EUROPA PRESS) -

The trial against Google, which belongs to the Alphabet group, began this Tuesday with the statement of John Schmidtlein, a lawyer defending the company in the case, who has defended that users choose Google as the default search engine for their browsers. and smartphones because it is the best, and not for lack of competition.

On the first day of the trial being held in Washington, which will last an estimated ten weeks, Schmidtlein assured that consumers use Google "because it offers them value, not because they have to."

Thus, Williams' partner

"Users have options and it is easy to change. Google is the first search engine on its own merits," the lawyer reiterated.

The trial for alleged monopoly is the first pitting the United States Government against an American technology company in more than two decades. According to the United States Department of Justice, Google currently pays more than 10 billion dollars (9,333 million euros) a year to continue being the default search engine in web and mobile browsers, which has provoked a reaction from users. 'antitrust' organizations of the world's leading power.

On the prosecution side, a government lawyer, Kenneth Dintzer, has stated that the evidence will show that Google acted exclusively to block rivals.

In his statement, Dintzer noted that the company had "weaponized" the use of defaults to discourage rivals and exercised its market power by blocking Apple from finding options that were better than Google as the default browser on its computers, phones and other devices.