What Google plans to do about online search antitrust decision
The story so far: On May 31, Google said it will appeal an antitrust decision aimed at making competition in the online search market fair. Google's reaction to the decision comes a day after U.S. Judge Amit Mehta heard closing arguments in a trial that sought to curtail the tech giant's illegal monopoly in online search. While the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) proposed stringent remedies to bring about fair competition, Google is opposed to these measures. Judge Mehta is expected to deliver his decision soon, which could potentially unravel Google's position as a dominant player in the online search business.
What is the DOJ vs Google antitrust case?
The DOJ hit Google with multiple legal challenges in recent years, alleging violations of antitrust laws, and the monopolisation of multiple markets the search giant operates in.
In particular, the regulator scrutinised Google's revenue sharing agreements with partners like Apple over worries that the search giant's rivals' services are being locked out of the market and that customers are seeing reduced choices for search engines on their devices.
In August 2024, however, Judge Mehta handed the DOJ a victory when he ruled that Google was an illegal monopolist with monopoly power in the general search services and general search text advertising markets. The Google Search Remedies trial that followed this year saw the DOJ presenting a series of far-reaching proposals to cut down Google's monopoly power, while Google presented its own list of far milder proposals.
What is the DOJ's case against Google?
The DOJ and the U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) are regulators that both work to ensure that companies, including Big Tech firms, are complying with American antitrust laws to enable fair competition. While the two regulators coordinate their efforts, the U.S. DOJ has the power to obtain criminal sanctions and has sole antitrust jurisdiction across industries including telecommunications, banks, railroads, and airlines.
One of the key topics in Google's Search Remedies trial is the Big Tech company's multi-billion dollar deals with telecom device manufacturers to offer Google services via their products. To bring about fairer competition, the U.S. DOJ suggested the forced sale of the Chrome browser, possible divestment of the Android platform, temporary restrictions on some of Google's market activities, and the creation of a 'Technical Committee' to oversee Google's compliance measures.
What is Google's defence?
Google has consistently defended the quality and innovation of its products, while denying that it stifled competition. The tech giant strongly criticised the DOJ's remedies to reduce its dominance, claiming that data-sharing with rivals would put customers at risk and that giving up Chrome and Android would lead to cybersecurity risks as well as increased device costs.
Google strongly opposed the idea of a DOJ-controlled Technical Committee, complaining that it would reserve the right for the U.S. government to decide who can access Google users' data. This is not a favourable outcome for the company, since U.S. President Donald Trump has systematically worked to reduce the independence of even federal agencies and regulators such as the FTC. Trump also suggested in the past that Google could shut down. However, the DOJ suggested in its Revised Proposed Final Judgment a court-appointed Technical Committee made up of independent experts.
Google's own proposed remedies include more flexible browser agreements and Android contracts, as well as oversight to ensure that Google complies with the court's order rather than coming under government control.
'While we heard a lot about how the remedies would help various well-funded competitors (w/ repeated references to Bing), we heard very little about how all this helps consumers,' posted Google on X on May 31.
However, a new issue in Google's antitrust quandary is Generative AI, and whether or not Google's monopoly in multiple markets also hurts competition in markets related to large language models (LLMs) and AI integrations across devices and the web.
For example: Google's 'AI overviews' that now greet users at the top of their searches could reshape the way customers worldwide search for information online. Google, meanwhile, claimed that the AI space was highly competitive and that rivals were thriving even without government intervention.
'The US Department of Justice's 2020 search distribution lawsuit is a backwards-looking case at a time of intense competition and unprecedented innovation. With new services like ChatGPT (and foreign competitors like DeepSeek) thriving, DOJ's sweeping remedy proposals are both unnecessary and harmful,' wrote Lee-Anne Mulholland, Vice President, Regulatory Affairs, Google, in a company blog post.
What happens to Google next?
U.S. Judge Amit Mehta will take time over the summer months to consider the facts of the case. A decision regarding the Google Search Remedies trial is expected from him before Labour Day (the first Monday in September), per AP.
Google is waiting for the court's remedies but said it still disagrees with the original decision and believes it is 'wrong.' The tech giant also plans to present its side during the appeal, which will happen after the court remedy is revealed. In other words, the legal process could stretch on for even years.
This is just one of several antitrust challenges that Google is facing in the U.S. and overseas, with cases covering different areas of its lucrative business such as its advertising technology, rights to its Android platform, and the treatment of developers using the Google Play Store.
The U.S. DOJ in April announced that it 'prevailed' against Google in a second monopolisation case, where the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia held that Google 'violated antitrust law by monopolizing open-web digital advertising markets.'
Google disagreed with this decision as well and said it would appeal the ruling.
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