DOJ Wins Massive Antitrust Case Against Google

August 5, 2024 Business, Government

Reuters reports:

Alphabet’s Google broke the law with its monopoly over online searches and related ads, a federal judge ruled on Monday, in the U.S. Justice Department’s first victory against a monopoly in more than 20 years.

The decision is a significant win for the Justice Department, which had sued the search engine giant over its control of about 90% of the online search market, and 95% on smartphones.

The judge noted that Google had paid $26.3 billion in 2021 to ensure that its search is the default on smartphones and browsers, and to keep its dominant market share.

The New York Times reports:

The ruling is the most significant victory to date for American regulators who are trying to rein in the power of tech giants in the internet era. It is likely to influence other government antitrust lawsuits against Google, Apple, Amazon and Meta, the owner of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.

The ruling did not include remedies for Google’s behavior. Judge Mehta will now decide that, potentially forcing the company to change the way it runs or to sell off part of its business.

The ruling capped a yearslong case — U.S. et al. v. Google — that resulted in a 10-week trial last year. The Justice Department and states sued in 2020 over Google’s dominance in online search, which generates billions in profits annually.

Most of the 2021 payment cited above went to Apple, which got $18 billion to keep Google as the default search engine on Safari browsers.



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