A US District Court judge has found that Google maintains an illegal monopoly in online search and search advertising, violating US antitrust laws.
On Monday, Judge Amit Mehta of the US District Court for the District of Columbia handed down his ruling: the company violated Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act by stifling competition and arranging exclusive and restrictive contracts with other companies. In a case that the US Department of Justice filed in 2020 and took to court in September 2023, the ruling represents a major blow to Google.
“Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Mehta wrote in the 277-page ruling.
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Siding with the DOJ, the judge found that Google engages in practices that prevent rival companies from competing fairly. Judge Mehta also criticized the company’s contracts with Apple and other tech players that require them to use Google as the default search engine in their products.
“The long-drawn-out decision by a federal judge, Judge Amit Mehta, that confirmed Google’s violation of section 2 of the Sherman Act was significant and expected,” Ted Sfikas, field CTO at digital analytics provider Amplitude, told ZDNET. “Judge Mehta focused on Google general search services and search advertising, but all of the other satellite services are impacted too.”
Following the judge’s ruling, the Antitrust Division of the US DOJ issued a statement from Attorney General Merrick Garland and Assistant Attorney General Jonathan Kanter.
“This victory against Google is a historic win for the American people,” Garland said. “No company — no matter how large or influential — is above the law. The Justice Department will continue to vigorously enforce our antitrust laws.”
Calling this a landmark decision that holds Google accountable, Kanter said it “paves the path for innovation for generations to come and protects access to information for all Americans.”
Considering Google’s search engine is responsible for 90% of all searches, Sfikas called it one of the strongest monopolies to ever exist.
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“Imagine if AT&T owned 90% of the telecom market,” Sfikas said. “Would your phone bill be higher or lower? Businesses realistically have no choice but to advertise with Google’s search ads. Only 6% use Bing, and I don’t blame them. Is it Google’s fault that everyone uses their search engine? We could say ‘No, it’s not,’ but only if the typical consumer could easily choose the other ones using a simple interface that walks them through it.”
In a response posted on X, Google Global Affairs President Kent Walker announced the company’s intention to appeal the decision:
“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.’
Given this, and that people are increasingly looking for information in more and more ways, we plan to appeal.”
Here’s our statement on today’s decision in the DOJ case:
“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…— Google Communications (@Google_Comms) August 5, 2024
Despite finding Google culpable of violating antitrust laws, the judge didn’t suggest any penalties, at least for now. Instead, the court will rule on possible remedies sometime in the next few months.
In the meantime, what does the ruling portend for the search engine and online advertising markets?
“If the ruling results in a decomposition of [the] search engine upon devices and browsers, that should result in increased usage of Yahoo, Bing, DuckDuckGo, and many more.” Sfikas said. “With the upcoming release of the highly anticipated OpenAI Search engine, this may further recalibrate the market. In either or both scenarios, the result will be a more agnostic data architecture in place globally to work with them all.”
Source: Robotics - zdnet.com
