US authorities are trying to boost competition in the online search industry
US tech giant Google broke the law by establishing a monopoly on online search, a federal judge ruled Monday.
The ruling is seen as a major victory for U.S. antitrust regulators, who have filed several lawsuits against major technology companies in a bid to strengthen competition in the sector, Reuters noted.
The case, brought by the US Department of Justice in 2020, argued that Google maintained its dominance in the search market by creating barriers to entry for other providers.
“After having carefully considered and weighed the testimony of the witnesses and the evidence, the court comes to the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist and has acted as such to maintain its monopoly,” states the decision issued by the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.
Google “enjoys an 89.2% share of the general search services market, which increases to 94.9% on mobile devices”, the decision says.
Google paid billions of dollars to device makers to secure its position as the default search engine on smartphones and browsers, Justice Amit Mehta said.
The Justice Department welcomed the decision as “a historic victory for the American people,” notice that “No company – no matter how large or influential – is above the law.”
The decision “recognizes that Google offers the best search engine”, Kent Walker, president of global affairs for Google parent company Alphabet, said in a statement on X (formerly Twitter). The company plans to appeal, Walker added.
It’s unclear what penalties Alphabet will face. According to Reuters, a second trial could be held to determine possible remedies, possibly including a breakup of the tech giant.
The company faces a separate lawsuit over its advertising technology, which is set to go to trial in September.
Google has also been fined billions of euros in EU monopoly cases.
Other big tech companies, including Facebook-owned Meta Platforms, Amazon and Apple, have also been sued by federal antitrust regulators for allegedly operating illegal monopolies.
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