“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,” the opinion from U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta reads.
The ruling largely sides with the Justice Department and the coalition of state attorneys general who sued Google in 2020, finding that the tech giant has monopoly power in general search services and text advertising.
Mehta found that Google unlawfully maintains its monopoly in these two markets through exclusive agreements with partners, like Apple, that ensure it is the default search engine on their devices.
About half of all queries in the U.S. run through default search access points covered by these agreements, which the judge noted forecloses a significant portion of the online search market.
This restricts Google’s rivals from accessing the scale needed to effectively compete with the search giant and has reduced both Google’s and its competitors’ incentives to invest and innovate in search.
The exclusive agreements also allow Google to raise the prices for text ads without “any meaningful competitive constraints,” the judge wrote.
“Unconstrained price increases have fueled Google’s dramatic revenue growth and allowed it to maintain high and remarkably stable operating profits,” the opinion reads.
“Google in turn has used these monopoly profits to secure the next iteration of exclusive deals through higher revenue share payments,” it continues.
Following the decision, Attorney General Merrick Garland emphasized in a statement that no company is “above the law.”
“This victory against Google is an historic win for the American people,” he said. “No company — no matter how large or influential — is above the law. The Justice Department will continue to vigorously enforce our antitrust laws.”
Kent Walker, Google president of global affairs, said the company plans to appeal the decision.
“This decision recognizes that Google offers the best search engine, but concludes that we shouldn’t be allowed to make it easily available,” Walker said in a statement.
Read more in a full report at TheHill.com.
