C. Scott Brown / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google has suffered a major defeat in a case filed by the US Department of Justice.
- The judge ruled Google guilty of engaging in monopolistic behavior when it paid companies to have its search engine set as the default on devices and web browsers.
- There’s no decision yet on what this will mean for Google’s search business.
Google has suffered a major defeat in court that could change the way it handles its search business. Judge Amit P. Mehta of the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that the Android developer violated US antitrust law in its attempts to stay as the default search engine on devices and web browsers.
Back in 2022, the US Department of Justice (DOJ) accused Google of anticompetitive behavior. The DOJ argued that Google’s practice of paying companies billions to keep Google Search as the default search engine option is an antitrust violation. One of the biggest discoveries from the case was the realization that Google paid Apple as much as $20 billion for that default position while also sharing 36% of its search ad revenue from Safari with Apple.
In today’s court’s ruling, Judge Mehta agreed with the government’s assertion that Google’s actions qualify as monopolistic behavior. Additionally, the judge also agreed that Google collected consumer data to ensure Search’s dominance and illegally protected this monopoly with the ads that appear in Search’s results. According to Judge Mehta:
After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly.
While this decision has big implications for Google and how it conducts its business, it is not the only company that will be impacted by the ruling. As mentioned earlier, Apple was receiving billions from Google through their deal. If Google has to end this practice, Apple will lose out on all that money.
Although the judge has weighed in, Google’s fate is still unknown. A decision on how Google will be penalized has yet to be made. Of course, the tech giant still has the opportunity to appeal the decision, which we expect is highly likely.
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