Google was found to have illegally maintained a monopoly over internet search by a U.S. District Judge on Monday.
Financial Times Editorial: "Ultimately, Google may find that its biggest enemy has been itself, not regulators. Exposed to competition, it perhaps would have innovated more"https://t.co/20ZGMNYSUP via @ft
— Francesc Trillas (@FrancescTrillas) August 12, 2024
Judge Amit Mehta issued the decision after reviewing evidence and testimony from executives at Google, Microsoft, and Apple during a 10-week trial last year. The ruling stated that Google’s search engine, which processes an estimated 8.5 billion queries per day worldwide, has been exploiting its dominance to squash competition and stifle innovation.
Google maintained an 89.2% share of the market for general search services, increasing to 94.9% on mobile devices. Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs, said the company intends to appeal the findings.
Breaking up #Google would be the most severe & probably least likely option the #DOJ is considering
Less severe options include forcing Google to share more data with competitors & measures to prevent it from gaining an unfair advantage in #AI products https://t.co/BsJUoryVVq
— Susan Li (@SusanLiTV) August 13, 2024
The Justice Department, which filed the lawsuit nearly four years ago, called the decision “an historic win for the American people.”
"This is the most important case about the internet since the internet. The court concluded that Google is a monopolist and that it illegally maintained its monopoly."
AAG Kanter says the Google search case is on "the Mount Rushmore of antitrust cases"?https://t.co/vEVzu76NpZ
— American Economic Liberties Project (@econliberties) August 13, 2024
The case argued that Google’s monopoly enabled it to charge advertisers artificially high prices and reduce investment in improving its search engine quality.
“A resounding signal that the anti-monopoly movement is here to stay.”
ICYMI: @nhegde in @washingtonpost last week on @JusticeATR's historic win in US v. Google.?https://t.co/L1wNuHfL7d
— American Economic Liberties Project (@econliberties) August 12, 2024
Mehta’s ruling focused on the billions of dollars Google spends annually to install its search engine as the default option on new devices. In 2021, Google spent more than $26 billion to lock in those default agreements.
Judge rules against Google’s monopoly
Google argued that consumers have historically changed search engines when dissatisfied, citing Yahoo’s popularity in the 1990s before Google emerged. Mehta acknowledged the importance of default settings, noting that Microsoft’s Bing has 80% share on the Microsoft Edge browser. The judge credited the quality of Google’s product as a factor in its dominance, stating that “Google is widely recognized as the best (general search engine) available in the United States.”
The next legal phase will determine what changes or penalties should be imposed on Google.
Potential outcomes could include requiring Google to dismantle aspects of its internet empire or prevent it from paying for default search agreements on devices. A Sept. 6 hearing is scheduled to begin setting the stage for the next phase.
The appeals process could take as long as five years, according to George Hay, a law professor at Cornell University. If there is a significant shakeup, it could benefit Microsoft, whose power was undermined during the late 1990s when the Justice Department targeted it in a similar antitrust lawsuit.
