Google violated antitrust law to keep a monopoly on search, federal judge rules

• Google was just dealt a massive loss in its landmark antitrust case.
• "Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly," the judge wrote.
• It was accused of spending billions to be the default search engine on Apple devices and beyond.

Google violated antitrust law with its online search, a federal judge ruled Monday, striking a major blow against one of the titans of the tech industry.

District Judge Amit Mehta said Google's billions in payments to keep its search engine as the default on web browsers violated US law.

"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," Mehta wrote.

The judge's ruling follows a landmark antitrust trial that concluded in DC in May. The case had been closely watched as a sign of whether other tech giants might face more enforcement.

Kent Walker, Google's president of global affairs, said in a statement that the company planned to appeal.

"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.

Evelyn Mitchell-Wolf, a senior analyst at Emarketer, said that Google's loss "could be a huge deal — depending on the remedy."

Google could be forced to divest its search business, she said, or lose the ability to strike deals to be the exclusive search engine across various devices.

But Mitchell-Wolf noted "a drawn-out appeals process will delay any immediate effects for consumers — or advertisers."

Larger implications for Big Tech

When the Department of Justice first filed suit against Google in 2020, it alleged the company's deals to be the default search-engine provider on various devices, including iPhones, violated healthy competition.

At trial, it emerged that Google paid $26 billion in 2021 to different smartphone makers — with Apple's cut being about $18 billion, according to The New York Times.

Microsoft chief Satya Nadella and Google CEO Sundar Pichai testified during the 10-week proceedings.

While Google's legal battle is widely seen as the most consequential antitrust case in Big Tech since Microsoft's battle in the late '90s, the tech company not alone in facing regulatory blowback.

The DOJ filed an antitrust suit against Apple in March, accusing the iPhone maker of stifling competition in the smartphone market. And last September, the FTC sued Amazon for inflating prices and overcharging smaller sellers.

Many were looking to Mehta's ruling as a bellwether for how future cases could ultimately be resolved. Now, Big Tech has its answer.