Editor’s note: Story updated with statement from Google
A judge ruled Monday that Google violated antitrust law by paying other companies to make its search engine the default on smartphone web browsers, in a monumental victory for the Justice Department that could have reverberations across Big Tech.
“Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said in the ruling.
The ruling could force Google to change the way it runs its business, and impact several other ongoing antitrust lawsuits involving other tech giants including Amazon, Apple, and Meta.
The DOJ, which sued Google in 2020, accused Google of having an illegal monopoly in search and advertising markets.
During the 10-week trial, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella testified and said he was worried Google will use its profits from search to strike exclusive deals with publishers for training its AI models, further boosting its market share to the detriment of Microsoft and other rivals.
In his comments in court, Nadella dismissed as “bogus” Google’s argument that it’s easy for users to change their search defaults, according to a Reuters report.
According to earlier testimony in the case, Microsoft was prepared to lose money in a deal with Apple to make Bing the default on iPhone and other devices. Nadella testified that he believes Apple was using its negotiations with Microsoft to “bid up the price” for the deal that it signed with Google, Bloomberg reported.
Google’s market share of the search engine market stands at more than 91%, with Microsoft’s Bing at nearly 4%, according to StatCounter.
Here’s a statement from Google:
“This decision recognizes that Google offers the best search engine, but concludes that we shouldn’t be allowed to make it easily available. We appreciate the Court’s finding that Google is “the industry’s highest quality search engine, which has earned Google the trust of hundreds of millions of daily users”, that Google “has long been the best search engine, particularly on mobile devices”, “has continued to innovate in search” and that “Apple and Mozilla occasionally assess Google’s search quality relative to its rivals and find Google’s to be superior.” Given this, and that people are increasingly looking for information in more and more ways, we plan to appeal. As this process continues, we will remain focused on making products that people find helpful and easy to use.” – Kent Walker, President, Global Affairs