Google has monopolized the search engine, but does it really matter? Mr. Nadella went back to Seattle, didn’t he

At the heart of the government’s case is the contention that Google illegally cemented its monopoly in online search by paying to be the default search engine on browsers like Apple’s Safari and Mozilla’s Firefox, as well as on the home screen of smartphones. Google has argued that the default positions are not overwhelmingly powerful and that users can switch to a new search engine if they like.

“Despite my enthusiasm that there is a new angle with A.I., I worry a lot that this vicious cycle that I’m trapped in could get even more vicious,” Mr. Nadella said.

Regulators around the world have been working to rein in the power and reach of Google, Apple, Amazon and Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. The Federal Trade Commission sued Amazon, accusing it of breaking antitrust laws by squeezing merchants on its site. The F.T.C. has filed an antitrust lawsuit against Meta and the DOJ has sued Google over its control of online advertising.

Nadella, in a dark blue suit, took the stand early Monday morning after a few minutes of scheduling updates and a delay long enough that Judge Amit Mehta asked jokingly, “Mr. Nadella didn’t go back to Seattle, did he?” The questioning started from an attorney at the Department of Justice.

At first, Severt simply asked Nadella to explain why he even wanted to try and compete with Google. What was Nadella’s answer? There is money. “I see search as the largest software category out there by far,” he said. “I used to think of Windows and Office as attractive businesses until I saw search.” He explained that Bing didn’t have to win the market to be a big business — and that Bing already turns a profit for Microsoft. (Google’s lead counsel, John Schmidtlein, later joked that he wished his law firm could count “marginally profitable” in the billions of dollars, as Nadella did with Bing. You should get into the business of search. Nadella gleefully replied.)

Nadella doesn’t believe that Windows market share is important no matter how the numbers are described. When Mehta asked him to respond to the idea that users can easily switch search engines, he said that “my only argument against that is that users don’t switch.” His best example: Apple Maps, which started out disastrously bad but has still gained market share in the last decade because it’s preinstalled on every iPhone. “People use it — it’s the default,” he said.

This onscreen Google slide had to do with a “semantic matching” overhaul to its SERP algorithm. When you enter a query, you might expect a search engine to incorporate synonyms into the algorithm as well as text phrase pairings in natural language processing. The changes went further and generated more commercial results.

The search giant is accused of manipulating ad prices and now it is clear that they treat consumers with the same disdain. The “10 blue links,” or organic results, which Google has always claimed to be sacrosanct, are just another vector for Google greediness, camouflaged in the company’s kindergarten colors.

Google likely alters queries billions of times a day in trillions of different variations. This is how it works. Say you are looking for children’s clothing. It is converted to a search for the company’s name, and will be more profitable for them because they will get more revenue when you search for the company’s name. It’s not possible for you to opt out of the substitution. If you don’t get the results you want, and you try to refine your query, you are wasting your time. This is a twisted shopping mall you can’t escape.

Why would Google want to do this? First, the generated results to the latter query are more likely to be shopping-oriented, triggering your subsequent behavior much like the candy display at a grocery store’s checkout. In addition, the last query will prompt the search engine to pay TJ Maxx and other stores when you click on their ads. It’s a sure way to line up the pockets of the company.

It’s also a guaranteed way to harm everyone except Google. This system reduces search engine quality for users and drives up advertiser expenses. Google can get away with it because these manipulations are imperceptible to the user and advertiser, and the company has effectively captured more than 90 percent market share.