U.S. Judge rules that Google has an illegal search engine monopoly
Google has been found guilty of maintaining an illegal monopoly in the search engine market. This is the company's biggest defeat in an antitrust case.
Google loses antitrust case against U.S.
The United States Department of Justice sued Google last year, accusing the Silicon Valley mogul of violating Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act. It said that the company was stifling its competition, by making deals with Apple, Samsung, Mozilla, etc., to maintain itself as the default search engine across operating systems, and browsers.
Back in October 2023, United States District Judge, Amit Mehta, had pointed out that Google's deal with Apple was the heart of the antitrust case. And now, Mehta has deemed the search giant guilty.
Microsoft CEO, Satya Nadella, Apple executive Eddy Cue, and Google's CEO Sundar Pichai, DuckDuckGo's CEO Gabriel Weinberg were among notable names who had provided their testimony. Nadella had previously mentioned that it was very difficult to get users to switch away from the default search engine, and that it was one of the reasons why Google was dominating the industry. Microsoft had tried to sell Bing to Apple, but failed to do so.
The testimony from Neeva cofounder, and former Google executive Sridhar Ramaswamy, played a key role in the judge's decision. Ramaswamy had mentioned that Google would pay billions to OEMs, to maintain its default status, and that this practice froze the ecosystem in place. The judge also cited Apple's Eddy Cue, who had stated Microsoft could pay no price to preload Bing on Apple devices.
The Verge reports that Mehta said “After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly.”
Google search's popularity had grown from 80% in 2009, to 90% in 2020, whereas other search engines like Bing had 6% market share or lesser. This indicated that there was no genuine competition, but Google had argued that the ruling confirms that its services were better.
DOJ antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter applauded the ruling for holding Google accountable. It's still unclear what remedy could be proposed. Google could be forced to terminate its deals with Apple and other OEMS. The DoJ could break up Alphabet Inc's search business, to isolate it from Android or Chrome, similar to what happened with AT&T in 1994. Google will appeal the decision, but experts believe it is unlikely that things could turn in the company's favor.
Apple will obviously be impacted by this, as it would spell the end of its search deal with Google, which brought it several Billions (reportedly $18 Billion) in revenue. But it may not be the only loser.
Could this affect Firefox?
Firefox users have been concerned by the news, because Google is practically the biggest funder for Mozilla, paying the browser well over $500 Million. Apple's Safari and Firefox are the only non-Chromium browsers that offer some real competition in the market. But, Firefox barely has a user share, so losing out on the Google deal could be a big blow for Mozilla. Will another search engine step up to partner with Mozilla? Wouldn't that be anti-competitive behavior too?
According to a statement sent by Mozilla to Fortune, the browser maker is closely reviewing the court’s decision, and considering the impact, and how Mozilla can influence the next steps, while Firefox continues to offer a range of search options, to serve its users’ preferences in a competitive market.
Google is evil.Destroy google.
It never ceases to amaze me how much of our tax dollars are wasted getting an “official” to state the obvious.
Nowadays, I use Brave Search, excellent, even in Europe.
Astonishing! On a computer, Google is the WORST search engine on the internet! It used to be the best, but slowly over time it got worse and worse until now, it’s completely non-functional for me. I detest it and routinely have to use other search engines to find what I’m looking for.
Some of the comments here relating to the supposed “quality” of the Google search engine strike me as quite amusing and poorly-informed. Google have done away with their boolean searches, a huge proportion of returned links are garbage, and the prioritization of paid links always contaminates the relevance of the links returned. In short, Google is a shit search engine to to do any serious research with. It is no better than any of the others maligned here.
I really don’t see the problem here. Using a different search engine is as easy as typing the address into my browser, or configuring the settings to default to another one. Unlike IOS, Windows, or game consoles, there is zero lock-in to Google search.
If Google competitors want to come configured as default on popular platforms, then they can pay a bazillion dollars for that position yearly, like Google does. Likewise, if I’m not happy with the state of US law, all I have to do is lobby the government with a bazillion dollars every four years to ensure that laws are crafted in my favor. Easy! Oh wait, I can’t afford that, just like how Bing and friends can’t afford to pay a bazillion dollars to be the default search engine? Boo-hoo. Only difference here is if I complain to the courts that corporations have an unfair advantage over me when it comes to crafting US law, then I will be laughed out of the court room and also probably stuck with the bill for wasting their time.
Google are lowlifes.
Just the search engine??
This is just the tip of the iceberg really.
Yeah, Youtube and Chromium too
“Don’t be evil” was never anything more than a joke to the capitalists who started Google. They do need to be cut down to size.
I hate to say it but Google is God as far as search engines go. Other engines only strive to duplicate what Google does much better… We need another “google Google”
A better search engine would offer complete boolean searches (possible even with current technology), automatic purges of dead links (Google has a massive 404 problem), and would not contaminate search results with paid ranking (bye bye relevance!). While dynamic content may erroneously return the current date as the creation date, the correct creation date is often right there in the content and COULD be returned, resulting in a better search result. These are not innovations. “Boutique” search engines do them all the time. Google, however, continues to offer the same biased, outdated garbage because people are either too lazy or uninformed to configure their browsers to use something better. Market share does not mean quality.
One can be talented yet dishonest. The point is not that Google Search’s quality would be arguable but that the company’s strategy to impose it is.
From there on, it is possible to use other search engines which retrieve their results from those of Google, i.e. searX/SearXNG, a metasearch engine which includes Google search results (as those of many other engines), or, another 100% Google-based search results engine no one ever mentions : QuackQuackGo, a smile to DDG by its name, but entirely focused on Google’s search engine results only [https://quackquackgo.net/].
Personally, never liked Bing from the very beginning.
The wimpy name-brand alone, sorry. Makes me
cringe. Wonder how they arrived at, associated with
the word .
For very few needs, still have to Google. Like a source
acquired from the beginning of the noughties. Minus
useless AI crap now, of course. Think uBo has been
helping a lot, insofar as targeted or any ads –since I
don’t get any.
To each one’s taste. There’d always be other choices.
I still detest “Bing-ing” trash; I think so.
Tom, thank you for citing QuackQuackGo. Looking to
see how it works–maybe in one of rare days I’m off
of my work in frontline senior nursing care. In remote,
rural town in America. Not now, though. Times could
be so crazy tight, more so when you’re living alone.
Have a good weekend, wishing you best, everyone!
@Fish, hi there!
There, a rural town somewhere in America. I just love it when we add to our comments something about ourselves, maybe because it’s that extra touch which brings some humanity, some warmth to the coldness of strict on-topic, quasi machine-like, formal wordings.
QuackQuackGo is really a basic search engine, retrieves only Google Web Results, not images nor videos.
searX, searXNG are metasearch engines which retrieve Web results, images, videos and far more. Several instances, a list available at [https://searx.space/]
I personally use 14 different search engines of which none is Google nor Bing, yet I use DDG as my default search engine (powered essentially by Bing) because IMO it’s well carried out. I’ve added a userScript [https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/420707-unduckbutton] which adds buttons that redirect DuckDuckGo searches to other search engines (in my case the other 13 search engines I use).
In my case it’s less not being fond of Bing than not being fond of Microsoft. Same goes with Google. Rather than writing an essay I’ll make it short : I avoid the GAMAM (Google, Amazon, Meta, Apple, Microsoft) :)
Have a nice week-end as well, God bless America and each one of us.
Best greetings from France, from a “precious little city” as my dad would define it when he had crossed the Atlantic to visit my spouse-to-be and myself, some 50 years ago :)
Vive la France, vive l’amitié France-Amérique !
Anyway.
Otoh. Personally, never liked Bing from the very
beginning. From the wimpy name-brand alone,
sorry. Makes me cringe. Wonder how M$ arrived
at, associated with the term.
For very few needs, still have to trigger Google
search. Like, from the beginning of the noughties.
Minus useless AI crap now, of course. Think uBo
has been helping, insofar as targeted or any ads
–which I’m not getting here…
To each one’s taste. There’d always be other
choices. I still detest “Bing-ing” trash; I think so.
Thank you, Tom, for mentioning QuackQuackGo.
I’m so eager to be able to add it sometime.
Out of only one or two days off a week dealing
with the frontlines in senior care nursing, yeah.
In remote, rural America.
Have a good weekend, everyone!
Actually I believe if Google paid nothing to anyone most users would still use Google search. I certainly use several search engines at times but I would still likely default to Google search until I am convinced otherwise.
@Tom Hawack
You might like to check 4get, the meta search engine I switched to about a month ago. I like 4get better than SearXNG. The problem with 4get are the instances which are not many (15 as of 2024-08-09) and they use to just disappear. I settled upon this one (https://4get.ch/), whichs seems stable (working about 99% of the time). Currently (as of 2024-08-09) 4get supports 13 search engines. One of the aspects of 4get which I particularly like is the easy way to switch search engines- perform a search, click on the scraper and choose another search engine. 4get is one man open source project, the developer is helpful and open to sugggestions. Avoid the official instance (https://4get.ca/) which requires captcha.
4get links:
4get about – https://4get.ca/about
4get instances – https://4get.ca/instances
4get – repository
4get – best instance (for me) – https://4get.ch/
I am curious of what you think of 4get.
If Google have to buy their way to keep their monopoly, then this is the exact reason why antitrust action needs to be taken against them. This is not competing on merit.
However, according to Google, they are not a monopoly – they just have a superior search engine which people want to use. If this is the case, then Google surely have nothing to worry about… Google should be happy, as they won’t have to pay huge sums of money to Apple, Samsung, etc. anymore, and people will – according to Google – still use Google based on merit, instead of using privacy-focused search engines such as DuckDuckGo or Startpage.
The mental gymnastic from Google trying to deny they are not operating as a monopoly is humorous.
And that’s not even accounting for how invasive they are on Android. There needs to be an easy way to disable all the Google stuff baked into non-Google Android devices – such as Samsung devices – as well.
Of course, the court needs to be mindful, as they don’t want to end up replacing one anticompetitive goliath (Google) with another anticompetitive goliath (Microsoft). Microsoft Bing will absolutely see this as an opportunity to capitalize on, and will also start paying large sums on money to be the default search engine. Once Bing gains enough market share, Microsoft will then likely start locking down access to Bing, which will cause problems for the majority of other search providers (DuckDuckGo, Startpage, Quant, Ecosia, etc.) that use the Bing search engine behind-the-scenes and Microsoft will end up locking them out of the search business too.
If the courts really wanted to make a big difference for consumers, they should look into the biggest problem of all with digital advertising: targeted advertising. Targeted advertising and the data collection that comes with it should be outright outlawed and only contextual advertising should be permitted.
Its time Microsoft is called out for pushing garbage in a paid OS.
This is none sense. There are many other search engines to use. Google does not hold anyone hostage to use their search engine. It just happen they are the most popular and people are used to “Google” every time they want to search online. When I think of search I think of Google so do billions of other people. No one ever says I am going to Binge for this or Yahoo this..lol
The potential impact on Firefox popped into my head before I had even gotten to that part of the article. That’s pretty concerning. Regardless of what a person may think of Mozilla and Firefox, and despite the small market share of Firefox, I think there are benefits to having something other than Chromium available on non-Apple platforms.
Justice.
And tell them to treat Firefox better, stop causing Youtube issues.
> And tell them to treat Firefox better, stop causing Youtube issues.
Firefox will get the treatment it deserves now, because this ruling has the potential to cut its funding by Google entirely. :-)
@Iron Heart,
Oh no, but that would take away the one thing you love to bring up as a diss against Firefox, the “funded by google” narrative.
You’d be stuck with just quoting market share, at that point. Sucks, I know.
Yawns at Google…
Censorship, shadowbanning, extreme bias towards everything mainstream, aka too big to fail.
They’ll never allowed it to go down, because Google/Alphabet is as private corporation as the Federal Reserve is federal.
So being a monopoly wouldn’t be a problem if they were biased toward extremism rather than mainstream? I’m sure the advertisers would love that.
Mozilla could contact Metallica, since they are a welfare company these days.
The sad truth is :
There is no other search engine as good as Google.
Apple did not Want Bing because of the quality.
Compare the number of users who use edge with the number of user who use Bing (on Edge)
And you’ll see that a lot of user DO change the default search engine.
Horse manure. Apple did not want Bing because the revenue would have been far less than Mr. Google Moneybags is paying.
Well, Google will no doubt appeal and since they have a sizeable bank balance it’ll take at least five years before the appeal is heard by which time things may have changed.
As for Nadella whining about Microsoft’s search tool, Bing is next to useless as a search engine which is why very few users want to switch to it not because Google has a monopoly.
It’s not people’s fault that they Google everything.
Thanks for the article! :]
Some people applause when their country gets invaded, some even give a helpin’ hand to the invader.
Of course it as people’s fault to systematically choose Google as it is Google’s fault to incite them by all means, be it with monopolistic strategies as the court has ruled.
I’ll add this as a personal note : if there’s one thing that always stopped me from shifting to a leftist orientation it is the fact of letting “society” endorse all the responsibility. WE are the society and individuals are responsible for their own choices. Of course we face powerful and arguably honest or not big, gigantic corporations, but it is to each and everyone of us to search for equity and behave accordingly. Misanthropist I remain. When you imagine that some even believe Google IS the web …
@Tom Hawack, there are even men and woman who are applauding and happy at their own marriage, what are we going to do? This is how things are going for people, countries and the world itself. The UK is the best example of this stupid way of not facing reality at all, till they all are fed up. Their fault, their shame, their Google way of life.