Google’s payments to make its search engine the default on smartphone web browsers violates US antitrust law, a federal judge ruled Monday, handing a key victory to the Justice Department.
Judge Amit Mehta in Washington said that the Alphabet Inc. unit’s $26 billion in payments effectively blocked any other competitor from succeeding in the market.
Antitrust enforcers alleged that Google has illegally maintained a monopoly over online search and related advertising. The government said that Google has paid Apple Inc., Samsung Electronics Co. and others billions over decades for prime placement on smartphones and web browsers. This default position has allowed Google to build up the most-used search engine in the world, and fueled more than $300 billion in annual revenue largely generated by search ads.
The case is the first antitrust trial pitting the federal government against a US technology company in more than two decades.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-08-05/google-loses-doj-antitrust-suit-over-search
Google will face another antitrust trial September 9th, this time over ad tech. The company will face off in federal court against the US Department of Justice in Virginia, after the DOJ claimed in January 2023 that Google violated US antitrust law by illegally monopolizing the digital ads market, allegedly boosting its profits while raising costs for advertisers. Google has said the DOJ’s reasoning “would slow innovation, raise advertising fees and make it harder for thousands of small businesses and publishers to grow.”
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