Google by Alphabet Inc is known to pay more than 10 billion dollars a year to its rivals to keep a hold over its position as the only search engine on web browsers and other such devices, slowing competition as per the US Justice Department on Thursday during the beginning of its high stakes antitrust trial in Washington.

“This case is about the future of the internet and whether Google’s search engine will ever face meaningful competition,” said Kenneth Dintzer, a government-based lawyer, in his opening statement. “The evidence will show they demanded default exclusivity to block rivals,” Dintzer claimed that Google became the monopoly in the market back in 2010 and is known to have controlled more than 89% of the total online-based search market. “The company pays billions for defaults because they are uniquely powerful,” he further added.

“For the last 12 years, Google has abused its monopoly in general search.”

This metropolisation trial is the very first one that pitted the US federal government against the technology companies in the US over two decades.

A total of 52 attorneys general from the US states and territories, along with the Justice Department, claim that Google has illegally maintained a monopolistic market by paying billions of dollars to its tech rivals, wireless providers, and smartphone makers to make Google as the default or preselected option on web browsers and mobile phones.

Google’s attorneys, who have strongly rejected such allegations, will be presenting their opening statement later by Tuesday.

Dintzer claimed that Google has “weaponized” using the default agreements as a tool to discourage its rivals and exercised its power over the market by blocking Apple from continuing with options that were a lot better than Google as a default browser on its phones, computers, and other devices. “No default placement, no revenue share,” Dintzer said. “This is a monopolist flexing. Apple had no choice but to cave to Google.”

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