Enlarge / Google and Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai departs federal court on October 30, 2023 in Washington, DC. Pichai testified on Monday to defend his company in the largest antitrust case since the 1990s. The US government is seeking to prove that Alphabet’s Google Inc. maintains an illegal monopoly in the online search business. The trial is expected to last into November. (credit: Drew Angerer / Staff | Getty Images North America)

Google’s star witness in the Justice Department’s monopoly trial, Sundar Pichai, took the stand on Monday. The Google CEO finally admitted that his company pays as much as $26.3 billion annually to set its search engine as the default in browsers and mobile devices because those default placements can be “very valuable,” The Financial Times reported.

When “done correctly,” Pichai testified, these deals “can make a difference.” The Apple deal, Pichai said, is one such scenario because it “makes it very, very seamless and easy” for Safari users to use Google’s services,” The Wall Street Journal reported.

“We know that making it the default will lead to increased usage of our products and services, particularly Google search in this case,” Pichai said. “So, there is clear value in that and that’s what we were looking for.”