US Judge Rules That Google Is A Monopoly In Landmark Antitrust Case

A US federal judge has ruled in landmark antitrust case that Google, the search engine and subsidiary to Alphabet, maintained a monopoly online for search and advertising markets. This marks the first time an entity such as the tech giant was found to be illegally monopolising the online search market and that it had violated Section 2 of the US Sherman Act.

“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 case was first brought to light during the Trump administration, where the US Department of Justice called out Google for making exclusive deals with Apple and other major companies in the mobile ecosystem. Google’s marketing strategy was so effective, it effectively left other search engines like Microsoft’s Bing and DuckDuckGo in the lurch, struggling to gain any traction in their own market. And while new AI-powered rivals, such as OpenAI’s SearchGPT, is certainly making headway, it has managed to stay ahead with its own AI algorithms baked into the search engine.

Google plans to appeal the ruling. “This decision recognizes that Google offers the best search engine, but concludes that we shouldn’t be allowed to make it easily available,” Kent Walker, President of Global Affairs at the company said. “As this process continues, we will remain focused on making products that people find helpful and easy to use.”

(Source: US DOJ, The Verge, Hot Hardware)