exclude SVPs from the definition. Id. Thus, the RSAs prohibit partners from preloading Bing, Yahoo, and DDG but permit preloading of Amazon or Instagram.
Third, advertisers consider GSEs to be differentiated from SVPs and social media platforms. The court will have more to say about this in connection with the advertiser-side markets, see infra Section III.A.1, but for present purposes it suffices to observe that advertisers do not generally view SVPs and social media to be reasonable substitutes for GSEs.
Fourth, Google itself recognizes general search services as a distinct product and separate market. As already noted, Google is the default GSE on Chrome. (Microsoft does the same with Edge, installing Bing as the preset default.) When Google has evaluated its quality against other platforms, it has done so primarily against other GSEs. FOF ¶¶ 136–138. For instance, Google has assessed its SERP quality and latency alongside Bing and has compared its privacy offerings to DDG. Id. While Google has conducted some evaluations of SVP and social media users, see Google’s Resp. Proposed Findings of Fact, ECF No. 912, ¶¶ 13, 15 [hereinafter GRFOF], its employees have testified that it would be difficult or unhelpful to do side-by-side comparisons with SVPs or social media, because of their differentiated product experiences, FOF ¶ 139.
In addition, internal Google documents show that Google, as early as 2009, tracked its “market share” relative only to other GSEs. See United States v. H&R Block, Inc., 833 F. Supp. 2d 36, 52 (D.D.C. 2011) (“When determining the relevant product market, courts often pay close attention to the defendants’ ordinary course of business documents.”) (citation omitted). Google has since suspended that practice. The record does not reveal precisely why.
Finally, evidence suggests that the public also views GSEs as a distinct product. Dr. Israel testified that there is “relatively limited [user] overlap between the general search engines.” Tr. at
145
