- 4. Google’s Proposed Query Product Market
Google urges that the relevant user-side product is query responses, not general search services. See GTB at 8. That contention rests largely on the opinions of its expert, Dr. Israel. He observes that whenever a person seeks information online, they make a choice about where to search, whether on a GSE, an SVP, a website, or a social media platform. See, e.g., Tr. at 8398:117, 8437:1-23 (Israel). These various sources, although differentiated from GSEs, compete with GSEs for queries and thus act as competitive constraints. GTB at 9. Plaintiffs’ user-side market for GSEs, Dr. Israel says, artificially cuts out these market actors, many of whom are Google’s primary competitors for users. Id. at 10–12. Those include shopping and local SVPs, like Amazon and Yelp, which fiercely compete with Google to attract users. Tr. at 8394:25–8395:9 (Israel).
In one sense, Dr. Israel is not wrong. Google does perceive and respond to competitive pressure from other platforms, particularly SVPs. FOF ¶ 140. After all, Google developed verticals like shopping, flights, and hotels in part to provide users with topic-specific results much like SVPs. See GTB at 13; FOF ¶ 45. Still, the court is unpersuaded by Dr. Israel’s query-byquery approach to define the relevant market for several reasons.
First, “the relevant market must include all products ‘reasonably interchangeable by consumers for the same purposes.’” Microsoft, 253 F.3d at 52 (quoting du Pont, 351 U.S. at 395) (emphasis added); see also id. (affirming the district court’s exclusion of “information appliances” from the relevant market “because information appliances fall far short of performing all of the functions of a PC”) (emphasis added). No one disputes that an SVP can serve the same purpose as a GSE for an individual query on a particular subject matter. A user can, for example, use either Google or OpenTable to find a nearby Japanese restaurant, or turn to Google or Amazon to shop for a blender. But no SVP can fulfill a user’s varied needs in the same manner as a GSE. Few
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