(The Center Square) – Google is a monopolist, according to a federal judge who said the technology giant violated anti-trust laws in connection to its search engine.
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Amit Mehta issued his ruling Monday, ending an almost four-year legal battle between Google and the U.S. Department of Justice.
“Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” the judge wrote in his opinion.
Mehta pointed to exclusive distribution contracts Google has with browser developers, mobile device manufacturers and wireless carriers that set the Google search engine as the “default” option “right out of the box.”
“… The key question then is this: Do Google’s exclusive distribution contracts reasonably appear capable of significantly contributing to maintaining Google’s monopoly power in the general search services market? The answer is ‘yes,'” the judge wrote.
Google took in $146 billion in advertising revenue in 2021 and had captured 90% of all search queries in 2020, according to the court documents. Microsoft’s Bing was the second-most used search engine with 6% of search queries.
“This victory against Google is an historic win for the American people,” said Attorney General Merrick Garland in a media release. “No company — no matter how large or influential — is above the law. The Justice Department will continue to vigorously enforce our antitrust laws.”
Mehta said he would not sanction Google for not preserving chat messages among its employees involving discussion on the topic. Google had a long-standing practice of deleting employees’ chat messages after 24 hours unless a setting was changed to preserve them. The court documents stated that even two years after filing suit, Google still was not preserving chat messages of its employees that were under a legal hold. In February 2023, the plaintiffs moved for sanctions and only then Google changed its policy.
Google did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
“Google was just handed a MASSIVE defeat in court over its search business,” said internet personality Nick Sortor on X. “Hopefully this will lead to accountability for Google, since they’ve been manipulating search results in favor of the Kamala Harris campaign.”
The media reported on Aug. 2 that the internet tech giant was criticized over claims of election interference. People who searched for “Trump rally” said that they were led to websites containing stories on Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris.
