Google has suffered a serious defeat in the US legal battle over Internet search. A federal court in Washington found the technology giant guilty on Monday of creating an illegal monopoly with its search engine. US Attorney General Merrick Garland described the verdict as a “historic victory for the American people”. Google announced that it would appeal.
Federal Judge Amit Mehta said: “Google is a monopolist and has acted like one to preserve its monopoly.” The ruling refers to the billions of dollars that Google has paid other companies over the years to have its search engine pre-installed by default on their devices and internet browsers.
The amount of the fines to be paid by Google and other consequences of the guilty verdict will be decided at a later date. The US Department of Justice’s lawsuit against Google dates back to 2020, during the presidency of Donald Trump. Dozens of US states joined in. The lawsuit was continued under President Joe Biden.
Attorney General Garland said of the ruling that the decision shows “that no company is above the law.” The ministry had argued in the case that Google had systematically sidelined its search engine competitors with its billion-dollar exclusive contracts with Apple and Samsung. Search engines such as Microsoft’s Bing and DuckDuckGo were affected by these practices.
Last year alone, Google is said to have spent around 26 billion dollars (about 24 billion euros) on exclusive revenue for its search engine, the majority of which presumably went to Apple.
Google announced on Monday that it would appeal the ruling. Judge Mehta concluded that Google is the highest quality search engine, especially on mobile devices. Given this and the fact that people are increasingly searching for information in more and more ways, Google plans to appeal. The company will continue to focus on developing products that people find helpful and easy to use.
In the proceedings, the company from Mountain View, California, argued that the success of its search engine was due to the fact that it was better than the competition.
The trial was the largest of its kind against a technology company in the US since a case against Microsoft more than 25 years ago. The 1998 trial was about the market dominance of Microsoft’s Windows operating system. The legal dispute ended in 2001 with a settlement between the Justice Department and Microsoft that prohibited the software giant from certain business practices.
In addition to Google, the Biden administration has also targeted other tech giants: There are also expected to be federal court cases against Apple, Amazon and the Facebook and Instagram parent company Meta. Another antitrust case against Google is also set to begin in September, involving the advertising business.
The search engine is essential to the company’s massive advertising business. Last year, the group generated more than $175 billion in revenue from ads on its search engine, or 57 percent of its global business.
Google and other internet giants are also under increasing pressure in the EU. Due to the Digital Markets Act (DMA), which has been in force since March, the Commission in Brussels wants to limit the market power of so-called gatekeepers of the internet. For example, Google is no longer allowed to give preference to its own applications, such as the Google Maps map service, when displaying search results.
