Perplexity AI and DuckDuckGo executives today separately testified in a US government monopolization trial that they would be interested in buying Chrome if a federal court ordered Google to forcibly divest the browser, with one of them estimating that Chrome’s market value is “upwards of $50 billion.” With an OpenAI executive having testified yesterday that they too would be keen on purchasing Chrome, the US Department of Justice now has at least three potential suitors for the Google product.
Perplexity AI and DuckDuckGo executives today separately testified in a US government monopolization trial that they would be interested in buying Chrome if a federal court ordered Google to forcibly divest the browser, with one of them estimating that Chrome’s market value is “upwards of $50 billion.”With an OpenAI executive having testified yesterday that they too would be keen on purchasing Chrome, the US Department of Justice now has at least three potential suitors for the Google product.
Chrome is a focal point in the ongoing remedy trial, with the Department of Justice and a multistate bipartisan coalition presenting evidence to a federal judge in Washington, DC over the next few weeks on the need to hive Chrome off if Google’s illegal monopoly in the Internet search market is to be remedied (see here).
Dmitry Shevelenko, chief business officer at Perplexity, appeared as a witness for the government and described the struggles his company faces in securing distribution contracts for its artificial intelligence product with phone makers and wireless carriers.
This is because Google has agreements with most players and the tech giant can put a “gun to your head” if phone makers “do anything they don't like,” he said.
Another government witness, Gabriel Weinberg, who is the founder and chief executive officer of privacy-centered browser DuckDuckGo, said he doesn’t think there's a “silver bullet remedy” to Google’s conduct that affects rivals, multiple third parties and users.
— ‘Gun to your head’ —
The Perplexity executive told the court he spends 75 percent of his time trying to obtain distribution deals with original equipment makers, or OEMs, and wireless carriers.
DOJ attorney Karl Hermann asked Shevelenko if Perplexity had inked deals with a few companies, whose names were not publicly identified. The executive said Perplexity does have an agreement to place its AI product with a phone maker but that the AI service was neither an exclusive assistant nor the default assistant on the device “despite both parties wanting it to be.”
During cross-examination by a Google attorney, it was revealed that the company was Motorola. Shevelenko said they tried “every creative workaround” because Motorola “really likes our assistant and thinks it's great for their users, but they can't get out of their Google obligations, and so they were unable to change the default assistant on the device.”
Shevelenko also said that despite many attempts at trying to have another company distribute Perplexity Pro, including a free trial for their subscribers, “we kept hitting a wall because they were fearful of losing Google revenue share and payments.”
Shevelenko said it was worth noting that any of the progress Perplexity is describing, “none of it would have even materialized to the point it's happened, if this trial were not happening.”
It’s only because Google is under pressure that phone makers, wireless carriers and browsers are even feeling okay at all about having some of the dialogs they're having with Perplexity, he said.
From Perplexity’s vantage point, it is of utmost importance that OEMs and carriers have no restrictions on their ability to build the best product for their users.
“They ultimately are like the portal to knowledge [and] the Internet for all of us, and the constraints they have now, where if you use one Google product, you have to use all of them. You have to default to Google ones,” Shevelenko said.
“You have a gun to your head that if you do anything they don't like. They can cut off a very material source of revenue for some of these companies. That ends up being bad for users. So, we think that OEMs and carriers should be liberated from these restrictions and from the threat of revenue loss,” he said.
“Mr Shevelenko, why don't you simply try to replace that revenue loss?” the DOJ counsel asked.
The Perplexity executive said, “Google, through its monopoly, has built the world's most lucrative business. AdWords is literally a money printing machine, and it will take a long time for any challenger that has a better product for users to be able to directly replace dollar for dollar.”
Perplexity is building what the leadership hopes to be a “generational company” that will scale and have different business models, “but it’s this replacement period that is challenging,” he said.
At one point, on being questioned about his and Perplexity’s willingness to participate in the trial, Shevelenko said he was testifying only because he was subpoenaed and that the company “feared retribution from Google.” He did not elaborate.
During direct examination, Colorado-led states’ counsel Jonathan Sallet asked if Google did not own Chrome, would Perplexity be interested in entering into a distribution agreement with an independent Chrome.
Shevelenko said yes, noting that Chrome has millions of users that would benefit from getting access to Perplexity.
The company would be happy to enter into a revenue sharing agreement that would not just encompass future advertising revenues, but subscription revenues, which is where Perplexity’s leadership team sees the business model shift potentially in the AI space over time.
“Mr Shevelenko, do I understand your testimony today to say that Perplexity would be interested in acquiring Chrome?”
“Yes,” the executive replied.
— DuckDuckGo —
Weinberg told the court that an effective remedy package needs to address multiple problem areas simultaneously. This includes the various scale and distribution advantages that Google possesses through its preferential payments and revenue-share agreements. The DuckDuckGo CEO said those revenue share agreements are “the root cause” of Google’s distribution advantage.
In addition, the court must tackle Google’s self-preferencing of its own products by placing the Chrome browser and the Android operating system as defaults on devices, he said.
“Because it's been so long that users have really never picked a search engine and it's difficult to switch, I really think you need to open up access via choice screens to reduce the choice friction that exists… there needs to be something to address the enormous gap in data and scale that has prevented us maintaining our search engine effectively,” Weinberg said.
Weinberg was asked what he thinks the impact on DuckDuckGo would be if one of the DOJ’s proposed remedies related to Apple is implemented. The remedy in question seeks to stop all preferential treatment and payments by Google to Apple in return for setting Google Search as the default search engine on the Safari browser.
Apple could enter the search market itself, or it could change the default search engine, Weinberg said. They could even split the default settings for a search engine in different modes and offer up a choice screen. Apple could potentially make switching between search engines easier. “None of these are mutually exclusive… they all would be good for competition, I think mostly good for DuckDuckGo too, probably,” he said.
US District Judge Amit Mehta stepped in and asked, “if we bar Google from making payments to its partners, wouldn’t the world just have a different giant?” Mehta hypothesized Google’s position being taken over by Microsoft.
“I'm not sure, but I think there's a monetization gap currently with Google and Microsoft, and my guess is Apple may not do that,” Weinberg said. “Even though they're saying they won't enter the search market, I think it's possible they could.”
The DuckDuckGo CEO said the outcome would also depend on all multiple remedies being in place, and Apple being able to obtain search syndication from sources other than Google.
Weinberg also favored a remedy mandating access to Google’s search text ads-syndication network.
DuckDuckGo syndicates its results from Microsoft, and the DOJ’s remedy proposal would need to work with that syndication agreement. “But in the broader market, this is key to enabling new businesses and existing ones to enter the market successfully.”
— DMA troubles —
Weinberg recounted DuckDuckGo’s experience in dealing with Google’s anticompetitive conduct in Europe and similar types of remedies as proposed by the DOJ.
“Google has tried to work around those remedies as much as possible, and has been able to do so, and so there needs to be some enforcement mechanism in place, like a technical committee that's been proposed, to have that not happen in the United States,” Weinberg testified.
He cautioned against following in the footsteps of the EU’s Digital Market Act, or DMA, which doesn’t provide for any type of technical committee. “So, it allows the gatekeepers to propose their own implementations, which is frankly ridiculous.”
When asked to evaluate the potential effectiveness of a remedies package that expires after three years — as per Google’s counter proposal — Weinberg said he finds it “kind of ridiculous.”
“It would take us a few years just to work through these remedies, to get it implemented and launched and get to work in. And then at that point, they would be expiring. So, it makes the entire investment not make any sense,” he said.
“Would DuckDuckGo be interested in buying Chrome?” DOJ attorney Ian Hoffman asked.
Weinberg said he has done some “back of the envelope calculation” and estimated that Chrome is “probably upwards of $50 billion if it went on the market. And that's just way, way out of DuckDuckGo's price range.”
“If price were not an object, would DuckDuckGo be interested in purchasing Chrome?” Hoffman asked.
“Sure,” Weinberg replied.
— Gemini faces competition —
Earlier in the day, the judge heard testimony from Sissie Hsiao, general manager for Google’s Gemini app about the competitive AI space.
“I don't think I've seen more fierce competition ever in my 20 some years of working in technology,” she said. “It's explosive growth. There are new entrants. Grok, DeepSeek, all sorts of new emerging models that are really, really strong.”
The quality of OpenAI’s ChatGPT is very good, and thanks to having been the first to market, ChatGPT has seen a “very, very strong lead” with 200 million daily active users, she said.
The market is very dynamic, and no AI model ever demonstrates a significant lead above the others. If one AI model is better, it's “only a little better” because then another provider will come in and make their model a little bit better than the previous best one. “So, it's very tight,” the Google executive said.
“I would say Google is in a really strong competition for the AI chatbot space,” Hsiao said.
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