Federal judge finds Google violated antitrust law in landmark case

A federal judge on Monday ruled that Google had acted like a monopoly and violated antitrust laws in its search business, a major blow to the tech giant.

Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia said in a 286-page opinion that Google abused antitrust law to gain dominance over other search platforms. The ruling followed a 10-week trial last year in the case, which began when the Justice Department and states sued the company in 2020.

“Google is a monopoly and operates like a monopoly to maintain its monopoly,” Mehta wrote.

Google, which powers 90% of internet searches worldwide, was found guilty of paying other companies — such as smartphone giants Apple and Samsung — billions of dollars to allow Google to automatically process searches on those platforms.

The government’s argument, with which Mehta agreed, was that Google’s competition was unfairly stifled by the billions of dollars in payments it used to maintain its search engine dominance. Those contracts were enough to block competitors like Microsoft’s Bing search engine.

Some legal experts say the case will set a precedent for other government antitrust cases against big tech companies.

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While the ruling issued Monday found Google guilty, it did not provide any remedies or penalties for the findings.

According to CNN, a separate proceeding will likely be conducted to determine what penalties the tech giant should face for its anti-competitive behavior.