https://apnews.com/article/google-apple-antitrust-default-search-engine-6f6755230dfda8e57d23903ac9dc79ab

WASHINGTON (AP) — Testifying in the biggest U.S. antitrust case in a quarter century, Google CEO Sundar Pichai defended his company’s practice of paying Apple and other tech companies to make Google the default search engine on their devices, saying the intent was to make the user experience “seamless and easy.’’

The Department of Justice contends that Google — a company whose very name is synonymous with scouring the internet — pays off tech companies to lock out rival search engines to smother competition and innovation. The payments came to more than $26 billion in 2021, according to court documents the government entered into the record last week.