The Department of Justice has been pushing back against Google search over its alleged monopoly for years. Now, the department plans on forcing the tech giant to either break it up or change its practices in the market.

In early August, Judge Amit P. Mehta of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that Google abused its standing as a search market monopoly. The company has been able to push competitors even farther away from the search business by paying Apple, Samsung, and others to be the default user search platform.

The DOJ won, with the judge stating: “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly”. With Google’s search engine conducting almost 90% of all web searches, it has maintained market dominance for over a decade. By paying these companies to use them as the default engine, Google illegally maintained its monopoly.

Of course, the online leader disagrees with the decision. President of global affairs Kent Walker stated, “This decision recognizes that Google offers the best search engine, but concludes that we shouldn’t be allowed to make it easily available”.

Although they appealed the decision, citing the company was simply the user’s preferred method, their pleas were not accepted. The way Google used its money to become the most accessible to users made its arguments flimsy and invalid in the eyes of the court.

Judge Mehta also referenced the company’s vast data collection which makes it almost impossible for other engines to compete. The Alphabet subsidiary receives massive amounts of personal data with every search made, the data is used to personalize search engine results for the user, making them less likely to switch to another competitor.  

This monopoly also allows the technology firm to charge more for ads. As it’s the most used search engine, they can charge a premium price for advertising space. This forces marketing teams to pay whatever price they demand. In turn, giving them more money to maintain their dominant position.

Although the case had not ruled in Google’s favor, there are a few things it was able to retain. State attorneys general argued that Google had illegally excluded Bing from aspects of it’s search engine tools, but Judge Mehta ruled against the claim. There is talk about requiring Google to release some of their data, but it’s incredibly unlikely that Judge Mehta will require them to reveal all their trade secrets.

Google will have its chance to present its own potential fix to the Judge in December. If he does not agree with their solution, he will give a solution they are required to follow. This case will likely lead to more antitrust lawsuits against tech giants like Nvidia and OpenAI. While Apple, Amazon, and Meta are already being sued, this case opens the door for more companies to be broken as well.

If you are an enterprise looking for assistance with your company or business, contact Fausone & Grysko, PLC online for free or by phone at (248) 380-000.