A judge on Monday concluded that Google violated the law when it maintained a monopoly over Internet searches, stifling competition and stifling innovation.
The decision is likely to have enormous ramifications for the Internet and paralyze one of the world's most popular companies. Washington District Judge Amit Mehta took it up a year after the Justice Department sued Google in the largest antitrust showdown in the United States in a quarter century.
“After carefully considering and weighing the testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolistic (company) and has acted as such to maintain its monopoly,” Judge Mehta wrote in his 277-page decision.
He said that Google's dominance of the Internet search market is proof of its monopoly.
Google “controls 89.2% of the market for general search services, a figure that rises to 94.9% in mobile devices,” the ruling said, representing a major loss for Google and its umbrella company, Alphabet Inc., which had argued strongly that the popularity of its search engine stemmed from the high demand of consumers to use it, thanks to its high quality, which “has made it synonymous with Internet search”.
Google's search engine currently processes around 8.5 billion queries per day worldwide, almost double its daily volume compared to 12 years ago, according to a recent study published by investment firm BOND.
Kent Walker, Google's president of global affairs, said the company intends to appeal Judge Mehta's decision:
“This decision confirms that Google offers the best search engine, but concludes that we should not be allowed to make it readily available.”
For now, the ruling vindicates antitrust regulators at the Justice Department, which filed the lawsuit nearly four years ago while Donald Trump was still president, and has stepped up efforts to rein in control of big tech firms during the administration. President Joe Biden.
“This victory against Google is a historic victory for the American people,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland. “No company – no matter how big or influential – is above the law. The Department of Justice will continue to vigorously enforce the antitrust laws.”
