Google’s Penalty for Illegal Search Monopoly to Be Set Next Summer

A federal judge who has already ruled that Google runs its search engine as an illegal monopoly said Friday he plans to make a decision by next summer on the consequences, which could include the breakup of one of America’s largest companies.

In the preliminary stages of the Justice Department’s Google search monopoly trial — the first such case against a major tech company in decades — Judge Amit P. Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled last month that the Alphabet unit violated antitrust law by using more than a decade of business practices that helped ensure its search engine remained No. 1.

The second phase will determine what remedies Mehta deems sufficient to restore competition in the internet search market – ranging from targeted action to breaking up Google.

At a status conference Friday afternoon, Mehta said he would hold an evidentiary hearing in March or April of next year and issue his opinion in early August. He asked the Justice Department to share proposed remedies with Google as soon as possible in the coming months so both sides can begin investigating.

David Dahlquist, acting deputy director of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, told Mehta that prosecutors plan to meet with industry representatives to gather their views before drafting the proposal.

“We want to hear their thoughts on how to bring back competition,” he said.

John Schmidtlein, Google’s lead trial lawyer, expressed concern after Dahlquist said the Justice Department was interested in potential remedies that could affect Google’s burgeoning AI business, which it has begun integrating into its search engine. Prosecutors hope to prevent Google from using its search monopoly to unfairly dominate the next generation of technologies like artificial intelligence.

“We need to see the actual proposal as soon as possible,” Schmidtlein said. “The devil really is in the details.”

The case, U.S. et al v. Google, was filed by the Trump administration’s Justice Department in 2020 and filed last year under the Biden administration. It was the first of two Justice Department antitrust cases against Google; the second, which focuses on the company’s online advertising business, goes to trial Monday in a federal court in Virginia.

In the search case, prosecutors accused Google of illegally using payments to device manufacturers to ensure that iPhones and nearly all other smartphones sold in the United States came with Google Search as the default. Those deals helped Google maintain a 90 percent market share by allowing Google to funnel business to its own advertising platform and other services.

Mehta ruled on August 5 that Google had violated the Sherman Antitrust Act, in a move that U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland hailed as “a historic victory for the American people.” Google said its search engine succeeded because it was the best available and that it would appeal the ruling.

The Justice Department has not yet said what remedies it will seek in the case. Colorado Democratic Attorney General Phil Weiser, who led a group of states that joined the Justice Department’s lawsuit, said in an interview last month that his team is exploring breaking up Google, as well as other options, such as a potential ban on paying phone makers to preinstall Google search.

Weiser said the goal of state attorneys general would be to agree on a common position with federal prosecutors on remedies, although they could present separate proposals.

The trial’s timeline pushes a final decision until after the election, adding complexity to a possible new presidential administration. In the last similar case, the Justice Department abandoned its efforts to break up Microsoft in 2001, after George W. Bush, who had expressed concerns during the campaign about breaking up the company, became president.

Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump have not publicly addressed the prospect of breaking up Google.

The company also faces a number of other antitrust challenges, including an investigation by the European Union and a recent lawsuit filed by online review company Yelp.