UPDATED 08:54 EDT / SEPTEMBER 21 2011

Schmidt’s Leaked Testimony Pleads for Pity in Antitrust Hearing

Google Executive Chairman Eric Schmidt is set to appear at the Senate Judiciary Committee’s antitrust subcommittee later today.  Google is under investigation for allegations that they favor their own services over competitors’.

Politico obtained a leaked written testimony by Schmidt which he would be delivering during the hearing.

Excerpt From The Leaked Testimony

“When you hear these complaints, I’d urge you to keep two things in mind, first, we built search for users, not websites, and no matter what we do, there will always be some websites unhappy with where they rank. Search is subjective, and there’s no correct set of search results. Our scientific process is designed to provide the answers that consumers will find most useful; second, unlike technologies of the past, the great thing about the fundamental openness of the Internet is that, if consumers don’t like what one website is providing them, they can switch to another website with just one click. Using Google is a choice (and a free one), and there are no barriers to consumers navigating to www.kayak.com, www.nextag.com, www.bing.com, www.yelp.com, www.expedia.com or any other website.”

“One of the main drivers of Google’s constant innovation is the fact that we face an extremely competitive landscape in which consumers have a multitude of options to access information,” Schmidt says in the prepared testimony. “If we want consumers to keep coming back to Google, we have to give them the best possible experience. And that pushes us to keep putting consumers first.”

If Schmidt aims to gain sympathy with his statement, Nextag, Yelp and Expedia will make sure that he gets none.  Nextag Chief Executive Jeff Katz will cite how Google prevents his company’s site from bidding on prominent ads that show up next to search results for products, while Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman will directly attack Schmidt’s “one-click-away” argument:

“When one company controls the market, it ultimately controls consumer choice. If competition really were just ‘one click away’ as Google suggests, why have they invested so heavily to be the default choice on web browsers and mobile phones? Clearly they are not taking any chances.”

Aside from acting innocent and appealing to pity of the public, Schmidt’s statement would also accentuate how Google helped the world by “helping create the new jobs and economic growth that America needs,” and how they “helped generate $64 billion in economic activity for hundreds of thousands of small businesses throughout the United States.”  Google’s been in the hot seat before, and it’s not one to shy away from controversy, debate or direct attacks.


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