Google is facing a two-front war in the courts over its monopoly position, which could fundamentally change its business and, according to the US Department of Justice, open up new opportunities for its competitors.
Google is facing a two-front war in the courts over its monopoly position, which could fundamentally change its business and, according to the US Department of Justice, open up new opportunities for its competitors.
Last year, a federal judge found Google to be an illegal monopolist in the online search market, and last week another judge announced that the company also monopolized the advertising technology market, The Verge writes in its material.
Google will face a new round of legal wrangling on Monday: a three-week trial in Washington aimed at determining legal remedies to restore competition in online search.
Google has vowed to appeal both decisions, but the company cannot do so until each case goes to trial. In court, starting Monday, the government will hear cases seeking to force Google to sell its Chrome web browser, share search data with competitors, keep the government informed of new investments in artificial intelligence and end exclusive deals with smartphone makers.
The Verge notes that Google is now at the epicenter of the biggest antitrust threat a major U.S. technology company has faced in decades — since Microsoft lost its monopoly on PC operating systems 25 years ago.
Outside the US, Google has also been hit with antitrust fines, forcing the company to make changes to its business to comply with international regulations. But none of these sanctions come close to what the US Justice Department is currently seeking. If the US Justice Department gets its way, Google and Apple could end one of Silicon Valley’s most lucrative partnerships, and competitors like Microsoft could gain access to some of Google’s most valuable data.
The Justice Department believes that serious action is needed to end Google’s search monopoly. It argues that Google’s exclusive agreements with Apple have made it extremely difficult for even high-quality competitors to enter the market. Owning Chrome allows Google to control one of the main access points for search engines. And the popularity of Google search means that users provide it with vast amounts of search data that competitors do not have.
The Justice Department also wants to make sure that any remedies imposed by the court are viable so that Google cannot regain monopoly power later.
Interestingly, the court will hear not only from Google executives responsible for search, Android, and the Chrome browser, but also from tech companies such as DuckDuckGo, Microsoft’s Bing, and Yahoo. The heads of artificial intelligence departments from companies such as OpenAI and Perplexity will also participate in the hearing.
But let’s not forget that Google suffered the «severest sanctions» in Russia, although this should not be taken seriously. As dev.ua wrote, a court there fined Google 2 undecillion rubles (a unit with 36 zeros, and 2 undecillion rubles is equivalent to 20 deciillion dollars). This fine was imposed on Google because the company did not comply with the requirements to restore the accounts of 17 Russian YouTube channels, including Zvezda, Pervyy Kanal, Rossiya 1, Moskva Media, etc., as well as Margarita Simonyan’s YouTube channel.
