Google 'is a monopolist' in search dominance, US judge rules in game-changing anti-trust case

Uh... well, Google isn't in a good spot right now, with a US federal judge ruling that the US-based search giant abused a monopoly over the search industry.

Judge Amit Mehta of the US District Court for the District of Columbia wrote in the ruling: "Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly. It has violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act".

At the time of writing, Mehta hasn't imposed any remedies on Google, but the judge may order the search giant to change how it operates or sell parts of its business. The lawsuit itself claims that Google acted illegally to keep its dominant position in the search industry through multiple actions.

This includes paying companies like Apple, Samsung, and Mozilla billions of dollars per year to stay as the default search engine on their respective phones and browsers. The Department of Justice argued that Google has 90% of web searchers, and that by paying to be the default option, it stopped competitors from hitting those types of scales in order to compete.

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The ruling reads: "Those search access points are preset with a 'default' search engine. The default is extremely valuable real estate. Because many users simply stick to searching with the default, Google receives billions of queries every day through those access points. Google derives extraordinary volumes of user data from such searches. It then uses that information to improve search quality".

Google released a statement from Kent Walker, President of Global Affairs, on X regarding the judge's decision: "This decision recognizes that Google offers the best search engine, but concludes that we shouldn't be allowed to make it easily available. We appreciate the Court's finding that Google is 'the industry's highest quality search engine, which has earned Google the trust of hundreds of millions of daily users,' that Google 'has long been the best search engine, particularly on mobile devices,' 'has continued to innovate in search' and that 'Apple and Mozilla occasionally assess Google's search quality relative to its rivals and find Google's to be superior.' Given this, and that people are increasingly looking for information in more and more ways, we plan to appeal. As this process continues, we will remain focused on making products that people find helpful and easy to use".