A US federal judge has ruled that Google spent billions of dollars on exclusive deals to maintain an illegal monopoly on search.
Amit Mehta, the judge who presided over the four-year-old case in Washington, called Google a “monopolist” in a 286-page decision on Monday that found the company had violated US antitrust law.
The ruling follows a weeks-long trial in which the DoJ argued the search giant paid tens of billions of dollars a year for anti-competitive deals with wireless carriers, browser developers and device manufacturers — and in particular Apple.
These payments, which cemented Google as the default search engine, totalled more than $26bn in 2021, according to the decision.
Google argued that it did face fierce competition in the sector and its success was driven by the quality of its products.
US attorney-general Merrick Garland called the ruling a “historic win for the American people. No company — no matter how large or influential — is above the law.” Jonathan Kanter, head of the DoJ’s antitrust division, said the “landmark decision holds Google accountable” and “paves the path for innovation for generations to come and protects access to information for all Americans”.
Kent Walker, president of global affairs at Google parent Alphabet, said the company would appeal against the ruling.
The decision “recognises that Google offers the best search engine, but concludes that we shouldn’t be allowed to make it easily available”.
The proceedings will now enter a second phase in which the court will determine what remedies Google needs to take. The DoJ has not yet indicated what penalties it would seek, but it may focus on curbing Google’s ability to strike the deals at issue in the case.
The decision is the biggest win against Big Tech by US antitrust enforcers in decades. They have filed a series of big cases striking at the core of their power in recent years — the DoJ’s antitrust division, led by Kanter, has sued Apple and has a second case pending against Google, accusing it of allegedly exercising monopolistic control of the digital advertising market. The second Google trial is set to begin next month.
The Federal Trade Commission has also filed lawsuits against Amazon and Meta. Google’s years-long agreement with Apple to make it the default search engine on the iPhone’s Safari browser has long drawn scrutiny.
Unsealed court documents showed that Google paid Apple $20bn in 2022 alone. This would amount to a substantial portion of Apple’s $85bn-a-year services business, which includes its App Store and Apple Pay.
Also at issue in the case were contracts Google reached over the years with Mozilla, Samsung, Motorola, Sony, AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile.
Mehta said the “sheer magnitude of Google’s query volume . . . compared to rivals is startling”.
