Pichai says that’s like asking Google to give away its secret sauce. He even called it a “de facto divestiture of search,” meaning it would be like splitting up Google’s core business without officially doing so.

Google CEO Sundar Pichai, taking the stand on Wednesday (April 30) in the antitrust trial, argued that a proposal by the US Department of Justice to mandate the sharing of Google’s search data with competitors will effectively amount to a “de facto” divestiture of the company’s core search engine.