A judge has ruled that Google’s search engine has been illegally exploiting its dominance to quash competition and stifle innovation in a decision that could shake up the internet and hobble one of the world’s best-known companies.
The decision issued by US District Judge Amit Mehta comes nearly a year after the start of a trial pitting the Justice Department against Google in the country’s biggest antitrust showdown in a quarter of a century.
After reviewing reams of evidence that included testimony from senior executives at Google, Microsoft and Apple during last year’s 10-week trial, Judge Mehta issued his decision three months after the two sides presented their closing arguments in early May.
“After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Judge Mehta wrote in his 277-page ruling.
He said Google’s dominance in the search market is evidence of its monopoly.
Google “enjoys an 89.2% share of the market for general search services, which increases to 94.9% on mobile devices”, the ruling said.
It represents a major setback for Google and its parent, Alphabet, which had argued that its popularity stemmed from consumers’ overwhelming desire to use a search engine so good at what it does that it has become synonymous with looking things up online.
Google’s search engine processes an estimated 8.5 billion queries per day worldwide, nearly doubling its daily volume from 12 years ago, according to a recent study from the investment firm BOND.
Google will almost certainly appeal against the decision in a process that may land in the Supreme Court.
For now, the decision vindicates antitrust regulators at the Justice Department, which filed its lawsuit nearly four years ago while Donald Trump was still president, and has been escalating it efforts to rein in Big Tech’s power during President Joe Biden’s administration.
“This victory against Google is an historic win for the American people,” said attorney general Merrick Garland.
“No company, no matter how large or influential, is above the law. The Justice Department will continue to vigorously enforce our antitrust laws.”
The case depicted Google as a technological bully that has methodically thwarted competition to protect a search engine that has become the centrepiece of a digital advertising machine that generated nearly 240 billion dollars (£188 billion) in revenue last year.
Justice Department lawyers argued that Google’s monopoly enabled it to charge advertisers artificially high prices while enjoying the luxury of having more time and money to invest in improving the quality of its search engine — a lax approach that affected consumers.
Google ridiculed the allegations, noting that consumers have historically changed search engines when they become disillusioned with the results they are getting.
For instance, Yahoo — now a minor player on the internet — was the most popular search engine during the 1990s before Google came along.
Judge Mehta’s conclusion that Google has been running an illegal monopoly sets up another legal phase to determine what sort of changes or penalties should be imposed to reverse the damage and restore a more competitive landscape.
The potential outcome could result in a wide-ranging order requiring Google to dismantle some of the pillars of its internet empire or prevent it from shelling out more than 20 billion dollars (£15 billion) annually to ensure its search engine automatically answers queries on the iPhone and other internet-connected devices.
After the next phase, the judge could conclude only modest changes are required to level the playing field.
If there is a significant shake-up, it could be a coup for Microsoft, whose own power was undermined during the late 1990s when the Justice Department targeted the software maker in an antitrust lawsuit accusing it of abusing the dominance of its Windows operating system on personal computers to lock out competition.
That case mirrored the one brought against Google in several ways and the result could also echo similarly. Just as Microsoft’s bruising antitrust battle created distractions and obstacles that opened up more opportunities for Google after its 1998 inception, the decision against Google could be a boon for Microsoft, which already has a market value of more than three trillion dollars (£2.3 trillion).
At one time, Alphabet was worth more than Microsoft, but now trails its rival with a market value of about two trillion dollars (£1.5 trillion).
Besides boosting Microsoft’s Bing search engine, the outcome could damage Google at a critical point that is tilting technology in the age of artificial intelligence.
Microsoft and Google are among the early leaders in AI in a battle that could be affected by Judge Mehta’s decision.
Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella was one of the Justice Department’s star witnesses during the testimony that covered his frustration with Google deals with the likes of Apple that made it nearly impossible for the Bing search engine to make any headway, even as Microsoft poured in more than 100 billion dollars in improvements since 2009.
“You get up in the morning, you brush your teeth and you search on Google,” Mr Nadella said at one point in his evidence. “Everybody talks about the open web, but there is really the Google web.”
He also expressed fear that it might take an antitrust crackdown to ensure the situation does not get worse as AI becomes a bigger force in search.
“Despite my enthusiasm that there is a new angle with AI, I worry a lot that this vicious cycle that I’m trapped in could get even more vicious,” he told the court.
Google still faces other legal threats in the US and abroad. In September, a federal trial is scheduled to begin in Virginia over the Justice Department’s allegations that Google’s advertising technology constitutes an illegal monopoly.
