Google is at risk of losing tens of billions of dollars to the US government

Google and the US government are presenting their closing arguments to Judge Amit Mehta regarding the antitrust lawsuit that may result in Google being penalized for its dominance in the search engine market.

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The US government has accused Google of violating anticompetitive laws with its Google Search engine, which is easily the most popular search engine in the world. The lawsuit alleges Google paid electronics vendors and developers billions of dollars to make Google the default search engine on the device, which created a monopoly within the market where other search engines are unable to compete.

Google revealed last year that it spent $26.3 billion in 2021 on deals for its search engine to be default on various internet browsers. Apple received between $18 billion and $20 billion to keep Google the default search engine on Safari. As you can probably imagine, Google doesn't believe it has a monopoly on the market, or broken any anti-compete laws and that its dominance on the market is a result of its product simply being the best.

• Read more: Judge reveals when Google will receive its punishment for abusing monopoly power

Additionally, Google CEO Sundar Pichai says the deals Google has made to keep its search engine default on browsers is simply the cost of doing business, even going as far as to say that its deals have made the market more competitive. Furthermore, Google says users are completely free to stop using its service whenever they want.

Google and the US government will present their closing arguments before Judge Amit Mehta, and if the search engine giant loses, it will likely be a massive blow to its main source of revenue - its advertising business. If Google is forced from various devices, it could cost the company potentially tens of billions of dollars in annual revenue.