Google created hurdles to protect smartphone foothold -small search firm

FILE PHOTO: A woman holds her smart phone which displays the Google home page, in this picture illustration taken February 24, 2016. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard/Illustration/Files/File Photo

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The founder of Branch Metrics, which developed a method of searching within smartphone apps, told a U.S. antitrust trial on Wednesday how his company struggled to integrate with devices because of steps Google took to block them.

The testimony came during the third week of a more than two-month trial in which the U.S. Justice Department is seeking to show that Alphabet's Google abused its monopoly of search and some search advertising. Google has said that its business practices were legal.