Google just lost the biggest antitrust case in history to date; here is what you need to know about the trial.
NEW YORK, NEW YORK – JANUARY 09: The exterior of the new headquarters of Google is seen at 550 Washington Street in Hudson Square on January 09, 2024, in New York City. Designed by COOKFOX Architects, the 1.3-million-square-foot project involved the restoration and expansion of the St. John’s Terminal building along the Hudson River waterfront. (Photo by Michael M. Santiago/Getty Images)
By Maliyah Simone, CRDN
Tuesday, August 27, 2024
In 2020 the Justice Department, along with a coalition of 35 states, filed a lawsuit against tech giant Google, claiming it has become a monopoly. The case stated that Google’s parent company Alphabet Inc. had illegally dominated and controlled the search engine industry by means of partnerships with Apple, Microsoft, and other tech companies to become the default browser on a majority of devices.
The bench trial was presided over by Judge Amit Mehta and lasted over 3 years. From witness testimony to evidence presentations, the trial was long and drawn out. The Justice Department brought in specialists and top executives from across the tech industry including Microsoft, Apple, and Google itself.
At the start of the trial Google requested that the case be kept as quiet as possible; evidence was sealed, proceedings were held in closed court rooms, and witnesses were sworn under oath to keep the dealings of the case secret. This caution, Google claimed, was to protect its trade secrets and confidential information; however, the secrecy of the case has received scrutiny as Google “attempting” to hide its dealings from the public.
Despite the confidential nature of the case, some evidence was made public; most notably that of Google’s expenditures totaling over $26.3billion in 2021 alone towards deals which secured the company as Apple and Samsung’s default browser.
In closing arguments Google’s defense highlighted the reasons that their partners chose to set Google as their default browser, stating:
“The evidence conclusively established that Google is the highest quality, most popular search engine in the United States, with the highest general search engine advertising monetization. The evidence additionally established that the partners who choose to contract with Google to preload Google Search as the default search engine overwhelmingly prefer Google to any other search engine.”
On August 05, 2024, four years after the case was filed, Judge Mehta’s sealed ruling confirms that Google has been illegally using its partnerships and dealings to elevate its search engine dominance to crush competition and create a monopoly.
The proceedings of this ruling have yet to be decided, but it may result in the divestiture of Google and Alphabet Inc., the dissolution of dealings between Google and its partners, and the redistribution of open market opportunities in favor of other search engines such as Bing, Edge, and Firefox.
Google’s president of global affairs, Kent Walker, has announced that Google will appeal Judge Mehta’s ruling.
“This decision recognizes that Google offers the best search engine, but concludes that we shouldn’t be allowed to make it easily available,” Walker said in a statement. “As this process continues, we will remain focused on making products that people find helpful and easy to use.”