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U.S. Judge rules that Google has an illegal search engine monopoly

Google has been found guilty of maintaining an illegal monopoly in the search engine market. This is the company's biggest defeat in an antitrust case.

Google loses antitrust case against U.S.

The United States Department of Justice sued Google last year, accusing the Silicon Valley mogul of violating Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act. It said that the company was stifling its competition, by making deals with Apple, Samsung, Mozilla, etc., to maintain itself as the default search engine across operating systems, and browsers.

Back in October 2023, United States District Judge, Amit Mehta, had pointed out that Google's deal with Apple was the heart of the antitrust case. And now, Mehta has deemed the search giant guilty.

Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, Apple executive Eddy Cue, and Google's CEO Sundar Pichai, DuckDuckGo's CEO Gabriel Weinberg were among notable names who had provided their testimony. Nadella had previously mentioned that it was very difficult to get users to switch away from the default search engine, and that it was one of the reasons why Google was dominating the industry. Microsoft had tried to sell Bing to Apple, but failed to do so.

The testimony from Neeva cofounder, and former Google executive Sridhar Ramaswamy, played a key role in the judge's decision. Ramaswamy had mentioned that Google would pay billions to OEMs, to maintain its default status, and that this practice froze the ecosystem in place. The judge also cited Apple's Eddy Cue, who had stated Microsoft could pay no price to preload Bing on Apple devices.

The Verge reports that Mehta said “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.”

Google search's popularity had grown from 80% in 2009, to 90% in 2020, whereas other search engines like Bing had 6% market share or lesser. This indicated that there was no genuine competition, but Google had argued that the ruling confirms that its services were better.

DOJ antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter applauded the ruling for holding Google accountable. It's still unclear what remedy could be proposed. Google could be forced to terminate its deals with Apple and other OEMS. The DoJ could break up Alphabet Inc's search business, to isolate it from Android or Chrome, similar to what happened with AT&T in 1994. Google will appeal the decision, but experts believe it is unlikely that things could turn in the company's favor.

Apple will obviously be impacted by this, as it would spell the end of its search deal with Google, which brought it several Billions (reportedly $18 Billion) in revenue. But it may not be the only loser.

Could this affect Firefox?

Firefox users have been concerned by the news, because Google is practically the biggest funder for Mozilla, paying the browser well over $500 Million. Apple's Safari and Firefox are the only non-Chromium browsers that offer some real competition in the market. But, Firefox barely has a user share, so losing out on the Google deal could be a big blow for Mozilla. Will another search engine step up to partner with Mozilla? Wouldn't that be anti-competitive behavior too?

According to a statement sent by Mozilla to Fortune, the browser maker is closely reviewing the court’s decision, and considering the impact, and how Mozilla can influence the next steps, while Firefox continues to offer a range of search options, to serve its users’ preferences in a competitive market.

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