Google faces legal issues after a federal judge ruled that the company unlawfully abused its search industry monopoly, following a 10-week trial in 2023 which was started back in 2020. The company also faced a lawsuit back in 2022 regarding alleged abuse in its ad practices.
Did Google Monopolize the Search Engine Industry?
The company is an alleged monopolist and is said to have violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act, according to US District Court Judge Amit Mehta. Because of this, the judge may order the company to change its operations or business practices.
To summarize the case, the lawsuit accuses Google of illegally maintaining its search dominance by paying major companies billions to be the default search engine, preventing rivals from competing and benefiting in revenue and data collection, as it facilitates 90% of web searches.
According to the lawsuit, the company’s default search engine, used by billions of daily queries, is valuable real estate, generating vast user data and improving search quality.
The search engine company acknowledges losing its default search engine position on platforms would negatively impact its bottom line, potentially leading to a significant drop in queries and billions of dollars in lost revenues.
In response to the accusations, Kent Walker, Alphabet President of Global Affairs posted the following statement on X (Twitter):
“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.”
Additionally, the company claimed that superior product and consumer satisfaction led to them having the majority of the market share, while DOJ claimed the search engine company monopolized search results ads, artificially boosting prices beyond free market standards.
However, Mehta noted that the company does not hold monopoly power in the broader search advertising market. The judge declined to impose sanctions on the company for failing to preserve relevant employee chat messages.
Started his freelancing adventure in 2018 and began doing freelance Audio Engineering work and then started freelance writing a few years later.
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