Google’s Online Search Dominance Is Ruled Illegal

Uploaded on 2024-08-07 in NEWS-Cybersecurity News, FREE TO VIEW, BUSINESS-Services-Law

Google violated antitrust laws as it built its Internet search business, a US Federal judge ruled on the 5th August 2024, in a decision that might have major implications for the way people use the Internet.

The court ruled that payments to make Google the default search engine on other browsers broke US antitrust rules, enabling Google to become a monopoly. The court further ruled that Google had acted illegally to suppress its competition and maintain a monopoly on online search and related highly lucrative advertising.

The case began in 2020 and concerns the billions of dollars that Google's parent company. Alphabet, paid to companies that make web browsers and smartphones, including Apple and Samsung, to make sure Google is the underlying technology the default setting, or the only option, in their search engines.

Those payments, totalling $26 billion in 2021 alone, secured Google's monopoly on online search and generated $146 billion in annual revenue from search ads in 2021. According to the court filing. “Google’s dominance has gone unchallenged for well over a decade. In 2009, 80% of all search queries in the United States already went through Google,” says the US district court for the District of Columbia.

In the 286-page document, Judge Amit Mehta noted that Google's dominance in US search queries was 90% by 2020, and 95% on mobile devices. After a nine-week trial and 3,500 exhibits, Mehta said the court reached the conclusion that Google was a “monopolist” and has actively sought to maintain that monopoly.

Alphabet, said it would appeal the ruling although, like the original case. the appeal process could take years. A future trial will have to decide the outcome for Google's monopoly in search and that might include an order to break up Alphabet, although other solutions are possible. These might include banning Google from offering search deals or opening up its search system to other providers.

The judgement was welcome US legislators and the White House press secretary said it was a "victory for the American people."

Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar said on X that it could herald further regulation of the sector. "This is a huge victory for the American people and shows the importance of enforcing our antitrust laws and why I am advocating for competition rules of the road for monopoly tech companies,”

Attorney General Merrick Garland echoed that, saying the case was a "historic win", adding in a Press Release: “No company, no matter how large or influential, is above the law. The Justice Department will continue to vigorously enforce our antitrust laws."

During the trial, Google had argued that rival search engines simply weren't as good, and that the trial should consider other ways to search the internet, such as via social media.

Evidence was also presented about Google being forced to offer a range of different search engine options in Europe to comply with the European Union's recently enforced Digital Market Act, but this appears to have had little impact and was rejected.

Image: igorris

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