Google faces judge’s questions as it asks court to toss US antitrust lawsuit

Google faced pointed questions from a judge on Thursday as it argued that the US Justice Department’s allegations that it broke antitrust law to build and maintain its dominance of search are flawed and that the agency’s lawsuit should be thrown out.

The government, which filed its lawsuit in the waning days of the Trump administration, has argued that Alphabet’s Google acts illegally in paying billions of dollars each year to smartphone makers like Apple, LG, Motorola and Samsung, carriers like Verizon and browsers like Mozilla to be the default search for their customers.

Judge Amit Mehta actively questioned Google’s lawyer, John Schmidtlein.