Google broke law to maintain online search monopoly, US judge rules | Google

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broke law to maintain online search monopoly, US judge rules |

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violated antitrust laws as it built an internet search empire, a federal judge ruled on Monday in a decision that could have major implications for the way people interact with the internet.

Judge Amit Mehta found that

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violated section 2 of the Sherman Act, a US antitrust law. His decision states that

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maintained a monopoly over search services and advertising.

“After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion:

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is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” the ruling states.

The ruling is one of the largest antitrust decisions in decades, capping off a case that pitted the justice department against one of the world’s most valuable companies. It was also part of a broader push in recent years from the Department of Justice and Federal Trade Commission, as well as ********* regulators, to scrutinize big tech companies for allegedly monopolistic practices.

There was no jury in the trial, which began in September of last year before taking a long hiatus for Mehta to consider a ruling. Closing arguments

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in the first week of May, with Mehta concluding the trial by stating that he was aware of the gravity of the case for both

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and the public.

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will appeal the decision, according to its president of global affairs, Kent Walker, who in a statement quoted parts of the ruling where Mehta described the company’s search engine as superior to its competitors.

“This decision recognizes that

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offers the best search engine, but concludes that we shouldn’t be allowed to make it easily available,” Walker said.

Mehta on Monday called the proceedings “remarkable” and praised the quality of lawyers on both sides of the case in his ruling, noting that millions of pages and petabytes of data changed hands during the discovery phase of the case.

US attorney general Merrick Garland called the ruling “a historic win for the ********* people”, adding: “No company – no matter how large or influential – is above the law.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said the “pro-competition ruling is a victory for the ********* people”, adding: “Americans deserve an internet that is free, fair, and open for competition.”

Government prosecutors had argued during the trial that

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illegally monopolized control over the internet search market, spending tens of billions of dollars each year on contracts to providers such as Apple and Samsung in order to become the default search engine on their devices. Justice department lawyers accused

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of using its dominant market position – they alleged the company controls about 90% of the US search market – to crowd out rivals and boost its own advertising revenues.

These default distribution agreements gave

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anticompetitive advantage over its rivals, Mehta’s ruling found, stating that the company did not give valid justifications for those deals.

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also spent vast sums of money to secure those agreements, the ruling noted, paying more than $26bn in 2021 alone to companies such as Apple in order to become the default search engine on devices.

Mehta’s ruling does not state what penalties

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will face for violating antitrust law, leaving major questions about the future of the company’s dominance over the search industry and how it will operate.

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’s defense relied on the argument that the company simply provides a better service to consumers than other search engines. Attorneys for the company pointed to products such as

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’s

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as inferior to

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’s, and argued that contracts to make

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the default engine on devices did not constitute antitrust violations. They also argued that Mehta should take a broader definition of the search market, presenting

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as just one of a range services that people use to search the internet – one that includes other tech giants such as TikTok and

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.

Another point of contention during the trial was

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’s history of deleting internal communications and having its chats automatically set to not retain message history. The government alleged that

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was intentionally deleting messages that could be unfavorable to it during the trial, a charge that

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denied. Mehta chastised

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’s attorneys during the trial for the ******** to retain messages and lax record-keeping policies.

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“It’s shocking to me, or surprising to me, that a company would leave it to its employees to decide when to preserve documents,” Mehta said during closing arguments.

Mehta’s ruling ultimately chose not to sanction

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for failing to preserve the employees’ chat, but said the court was “taken aback by the lengths to which

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goes to avoid creating a paper trail for regulators and litigants”.

The justice department originally filed its suit against

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in 2020, but later joined in a wider legal action that included attorneys general from more than three dozen states and territories. During opening arguments, the government’s lawyer Kenneth Dintzer declared that the trial was about “the future of the internet”.

Much of the trial unfolded behind closed doors, leading to transparency advocates and tech critics to allege that

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was attempting to keep the case out of the public discourse and quell media coverage.

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successfully petitioned to block public access to evidence and testimony, arguing that it would potentially reveal trade secrets.

New York’s attorney general, Letitia James, who was part of the legal action against

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, celebrated the decision on Monday. “This is a major victory to stop unchecked corporate power from stifling competition and controlling our data and privacy,” James posted on X.

The tech giantfaces another justice department antitrust lawsuit later this year, which will focus on its advertising practices and whether it

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key advertising technology.

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did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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#

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#broke #law #maintain #online #search #monopoly #judge #rules #

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