A federal judge in the United States has ruled that Google maintains dominant position in search engine world through a strategy that affects free competition in the market. This is a historic decision for a case that began four years ago.
The U.S. Justice Department sued Google in 2020 for using monopolistic practices to maintain its leadership in search, such as paying millions of dollars to companies like Apple and Samsung to make Google the default search engine on their devices. Judge Amit Mehta said: This is a monopolistic practice that prevents competitors from competing with Google.
A historic defeat for Google
Every year, Google pays millions of dollars to Apple and other companies to have their smartphones, tablets and other devices use Google’s search engine as their default search engine. During the trial, it was mentioned that Google paid Apple over $26 billion for this reason in 2021. What Google is looking for is to ensure its dominance in the search engine market, given that search and advertising are the company’s main sources of revenue.
Last July Google’s market share in the search market was 91.02%according to StatCounter, followed by Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, with just 3.88%. This market dominance was one of the reasons why the U.S. Department of Justice filed a monopolistic practice lawsuit against Google.
The judge’s decision states that Google has maintained its leading position in the search market by build barriers to competitionensuring that its own search engine is available by default on the millions of mobile devices sold worldwide each year.[Google] “has harmed the ability of competitors to compete in this market.” According to the judge:
“After carefully reviewing and weighing the testimony and evidence, the court comes to the following conclusion: Google is a monopoly and has acted as such to maintain its monopoly.”
Even though the federal judge has already ruled, this case that began four years ago is not yet over, and it is unclear what consequences this historic defeat would have for Google and its organization. It is estimated that the Justice Department could demand that Google separate some of its business unitsFor example, your Chrome and Android search activity.
Cover photo | Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash
By | Xataka
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