The US Department of Justice has "finally released what Judge Amit Mehta described in the Google Search trial as an 'embarrassing' exhibit that Google tried to hide from the public", he says Ars Technica:
This document contains notes of a speech given by Google's vice president of finance, Michael Roszak. “It was created for a communication course,” Bloomberg reported.
In his notes, Roszak wrote that Google Search “is one of the biggest business models in the world ever created" with financials that only certain "illegal businesses" selling "cigarettes or drugs" "could compete with".
I should mention that in the comparison with cigarettes and drugs, Mr. Roszak adds another dimension to the law of supply and demand, that of addiction.
At trial, Roszak told the court he did not recall ever making the presentation. He said the course required him to tell students "things I don't believe". He also claimed the notes were "full of exaggeration" and did not reflect his true beliefs, "because there was no business purpose to it".
According to Bloomberg, Google has repeatedly objected to sharing the document with the court, arguing that it was irrelevant to the Justice Department's case. Then, after Mehta allowed the DOJ to introduce the document into evidence, Google tried to seal Roszak's testimony in the document…
Beyond likening Google Search to illegal drug purchases, Roszak's notes also said that because users are hooked on the machine search of Google, Google can "largely ignore the demand side" of the "fundamental laws of economics" and "focus only on the supply side of advertisers."
"We could essentially tear up the economics book," Roszak notes.
A Google spokesperson told Bloomberg that Roszak's statements “do not reflect her opinion companys” and “prepared for a lecture in which the instructions were to say something exaggerated and attract attention”. The company spokesman also said Roszak "did not believe the statements were true."
