Google suffered a setback in a US court on Monday, August 5, when a federal judge ruled that the company had violated antitrust law in the online search engine market, in the first major trial of its kind against the Internet giant.
“Google is a monopolist and has acted as such to maintain its monopoly,” Judge Amit P. Mehta ruled in his opinion, in which he stated that the technology company has violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act by maintaining monopolistic practices in search services and general advertising.
This law makes it illegal to monopolize, conspire to monopolize or attempt to monopolize a market for products or services.
The US Department of Justice, which brought charges against Google, argued in its complaint that the technology company uses its dominant position in the search engine market to put up barriers for other companies and create a sort of vicious circle in its favour.
Google has defended itself by arguing that it only takes a few clicks of the mouse to use an alternative search engine.
During this trial in 2023, The technology company announced that it paid US$26.3 billion in 2021 to be the main default search engine on electronic devices, an amount that mainly went to Apple, according to some sources consulted by American economic media.
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The company has spent tens of billions of dollars on exclusive contracts to secure a dominant position as the world’s default search provider on smartphones and web browsers.
The judge also noted in his ruling that Google’s “anti-competitive behavior” “must stop.”
Specifically, the judge concluded that Google’s exclusive agreements with Apple and other key companies in the mobile ecosystem are anti-competitive.
The judge also noted that the company has also charged high prices for search advertising that reflect its monopoly power in search.
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While the court did not find that Google has a monopoly on search ads, the broader sweep of the opinion represents the first major decision in a series of government-led antitrust lawsuits targeting big tech companies, including Meta, Amazon and Apple, which are facing similar claims.
It is not known what penalty Google will face following the judge’s decision.
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