AI dominates as judge weighs penalties in Google search case
A federal judge grappled Friday with the way artificial intelligence (AI) is rapidly changing the internet, as he weighed what penalties Google will ultimately face for illegally monopolizing search.
Google and the Department of Justice (DOJ) presented their closing arguments following a three-week hearing to determine the proper remedies after the tech giant was found to have improperly maintained its search monopoly through a series of exclusive agreements.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta peppered both sides with questions over eight hours Friday, focusing heavily on what AI means for Google and the search market.
The DOJ has argued that Google's dominance over search gives it a leg up in the AI race. It has pushed for more forward-looking remedies, including forcing the company to sell its Chrome browser.
Google has contested this assertion, underscoring the competition it faces in the AI space from the likes of OpenAI's ChatGPT, xAI's Grok, and DeepSeek. It has suggested a much more limited set of remedies that would bar the company from entering into the exclusive agreements the court deemed anticompetitive.
Mehta appeared skeptical of Google's proposed remedies, noting they 'could have all closed up shop' if he simply needed to issue an injunction blocking the company's exclusive agreements with device manufacturers and browsers.
However, the judge didn't seem entirely convinced by the DOJ's wide-reaching proposal either, pushing the government to explain how AI fits into the search case.
David Dahlquist, the government's lead attorney, dismissed Google's proposal Friday as 'milquetoast remedies that it knows will maintain the status quo.'
He argued the remedies can go beyond the confines of the search market identified in the case to prevent Google from taking advantage of its existing market power, underscoring the way generative AI could drive more users to its search engine.
'We do not have to have complete blinders as to what's going on in the rest of the world, and we should not,' Dahlquist said.
Google seemed keen to get ahead of these concerns, noting that as part of its own proposal, it would not enter into exclusive agreements with its AI chatbot Gemini.
'Gen AI technology is influencing how search looks today,' John Schmidtlein, Google's lead attorney, said Friday. 'To the extent the court was concerned that somehow gen AI products could in the future find themselves in the relevant market … we're addressing it.'
AI was central to Google CEO Sundar Pichai's testimony last month, in which he detailed the push to make Google an 'AI-first company.'
'I'm pleased with the progress [on AI], but we have a big gap between us and the market leader in this space,' he said at the time, referring to OpenAI, which recently beat out Google for a deal with Apple.
Since Pichai's appearance on the stand, Google has rolled out a new feature further integrating AI into its search engine. The new 'AI Mode' tab gives users a chatbot-like experience within Google Search.
Mehta separately pressed the two sides Friday on the DOJ's data-sharing and syndication proposals. The government has pushed for Google to share search data and syndication to boost potential competitors.
When questioned by the judge, the DOJ acknowledged that AI rivals such as OpenAI and Perplexity could also receive access to this data.
Google has resisted almost any form of data-sharing, arguing it exposes the company's intellectual property and poses numerous privacy problems. But Schmidtlein gave some credence to the idea of a 'tailored' approach to syndication Friday.
The search giant is struggling to maintain hold of its tech empire in the face of dual antitrust cases. Just days before Google was set to appear in court for the remedies hearing, a separate judge ruled the company had an illegal monopoly over advertising technology.
Google ultimately plans to appeal the decisions in both cases, but it has to wrap up remedies first. Mehta has previously said he hopes to rule by August, and the remedies trial in the ad tech case is set for September.
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