Group loses antitrust lawsuit Judge: "Google is a monopolist" in internet search
For years, Google was the default search engine in web browsers such as Apple's Safari and Firefox. Now a US judge has declared the search engine giant a monopolist.
06.08.2024, 04:24
06.08.2024, 08:48
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- A US federal judge has accused the Californian technology company Google of using its dominance in the field of internet search engines to suppress competition and prevent innovation.
- District Judge Amit Mehta handed down the ruling on Monday (local time) almost a year after the start of a trial in which the US Department of Justice and Google faced off. It was the biggest antitrust dispute in the USA for 25 years.
- Google intends to appeal against the ruling.
A US federal court has found the internet giant Google guilty of antitrust violations with its search engine. "Google is a monopolist and acted as such to preserve its monopoly," a judge in Washington said on Monday.
The case concerns the fact that the company persuaded contractual partners to pre-install the Google search engine on their devices. The amount of the fines to be paid by the US company will be determined at a later date.
The US Department of Justice and dozens of federal states had filed a lawsuit against Google. The US government argued that Google had "created a wall around its search engine monopoly" with this practice.
Tens of billions of dollars for standard installation
Google is accused of having spent tens of billions of dollars to ensure the standard installation of its search engine on smartphones and in the browsers of other companies.
In the past year alone, Google is said to have spent 26 billion dollars on this, with most of this sum going to Apple. Although users can select a different search engine at any time, many stick with the default setting.
Google countered in the proceedings that users use Google because they are satisfied with the quality of the search results. The company dominates around 90 percent of the global Internet search engine market and generates massive revenues from the advertising business via its search engine.
Google intends to appeal
The company announced that it intends to appeal against the ruling, stating that the judge had come to the conclusion that Google is the highest quality search engine, especially on mobile devices. In view of this and the fact that people are increasingly searching for information in more and more ways, Google plans to appeal.
The lawsuit was filed under Donald Trump as US President. The government of Trump's successor Joe Biden continued the proceedings.