Google illegally maintained monopoly over search, judge rules in major antitrust case

Company accused of dominating search market by paying rivals to use its services

Google violated antitrust laws by paying rivals to default to its search engine, a federal court ruled in a major decision that will likely impact how tech giants operate.

“Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Judge Amit P Mehta, of the US District Court for the District of Columbia, wrote in his Monday ruling, which found that the search giant violated the Sherman Act, a major antitrust law.

The Department of Justice and a collection of US states brought the case against Google in 2020 over its practice of paying companies like Apple and Samsung billions of dollars a year to have the search engine automatically handle search inquiries on their phones and browsers.

The Biden administration celebrated the ruling.

“This pro-competition ruling is a victory for the American people,” White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a statement. “As President Biden and Vice President Harris have long said, Americans deserve an internet that is free, fair, and open for competition. The Biden-Harris agenda is building an economy that ensures entrepreneurs and small businesses have a fair shot at the American Dream.”

The company paid Apple alone $18bn to keep Google as the default search engine on iPhones, according to The New York Times.

Google’s ubiquity, handling some 90 percent of world internet searches, then allowed the company to dominate the market for sponsored advertising in search results, further entrenching its advantage, according to the ruling.

The suit also took issue with Google’s practice of making phone manufacturers supporting the Android operating system default to certain Google apps to get access to the company’s Play Store.

It’s the largest DOJ-led antitrust case against the tech industry since the famous Microsoft case two decades ago, according to The Verge.

At trial, Google argued it was so successful not via monopoly tactics but because of its attractive product offerings, and should be compared not just with fellow search engines, but with other companies like Amazon that rely on web traffic.

“This decision recognizes that Google offers the best search engine, but concludes that we shouldn’t be allowed to make it easily available. We appreciate the Court’s finding that Google is ‘the industry’s highest quality search engine, which has earned Google the trust of hundreds of millions of daily users’, that Google ‘has long been the best search engine, particularly on mobile devices’, ‘has continued to innovate in search’ and that ‘Apple and Mozilla occasionally assess Google’s search quality relative to its rivals and find Google’s to be superior,’” Kent Walker, president of global affairs at Google parent company Alphabet, said in a statement provided to The Independent.

The company plans to appeal the verdict.

The decision was only a finding about Google’s liability in the case, and a separate proceeding will determine what the search giant needs to do to get back in compliance with the law.

The ruling is the latest blow to Google after a federal jury in California found that the company’s app marketplace is an illegal monopoly.

The company faces a separate case from the DOJ and a group of eight states, accusing it of dominating the online advertising market.

The Biden administration has made anti-monopoly legal action a major priority, with agencies filing antitrust suits against Amazon over its e-commerce practices and Apple over its mobile dominance.