Google’s search defaults prey on power of habit: Expert in antitrust trial

Antonio Rangel, a behavioral economist and professor at the California Institute of Technology, knows how to get you to grab a cereal box off a supermarket shelf using product placement and consumer habits. And he said Google understands the same tricks, which is why the tech giant has fought so hard to keep itself as the default search engine on mobile phones.

“If I can move your eyes, if I can manipulate your fixations, I can manipulate your choices quite a bit,” Rangel said as an expert witness called by the US government in its landmark antitrust trial against Alphabet Inc.’s Google.