Bridget Carey (00:00):
A US federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on internet search and advertising. Now, of course, we all know Google is the largest search engine. It’s not a crime to have the most popular product that everyone uses. However, the big deal here is that a judge is saying the way Google conducts its business is actually breaking the law, because it is illegal to act in a way that harms competition.
(00:26)
And this, in part, has to do with how Google pays companies like Apple and Samsung to make Google the default search engine on phones. In his decision, US District Judge Amit Mehta wrote, quote, “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.”
(00:51)
Google responded with a statement from Kent Walker, the company’s president for global affairs, who said the company does plan to appeal. And Walker said, quote, “This decision recognizes that Google offers the best search engine, but concludes that we shouldn’t be allowed to make it easily available.” Now, the Justice Department also put out its own statement on the ruling.
(01:20)
In the trial, the Justice Department pointed to how Google paid Apple and Samsung billions of dollars to make sure that Google was the default search engine on smartphones and phone browsers, which then Google gets all this user data to grow stronger and stronger. And the argument is that it makes it hard for other search engines to compete. The New York Times reported Google paid Apple about $18 billion in 2021 to be the default search engine on iPhones. And this isn’t just about the search engine. The government also accused Google of running an illegal monopoly over the advertisements in its search results.
(01:59)
This whole ordeal has been stretched out. The lawsuit was filed in 2020, the trial was last year, and it took 10 weeks. And now the judge ruled that Google violated the law. So what’s next? Well, there’s going to be another ruling, perhaps, coming on what the punishment or cure will need to be. The court might say what Google needs to change to fix this illegal monopoly behavior.
(02:23)
It’s been quite an era for the government going after big tech giants and their monopolies. Earlier this year, the Justice Department sued Apple over how it makes it hard for iPhone customers to leave the iPhone and switch to Android. That battle is still ongoing. Last year, the FTC sued Amazon, alleging that it blocks competition. And the FTC also has an ongoing lawsuit with Meta over how it accumulated a social media monopoly when it acquired Instagram and WhatsApp. And the agency is trying to break up the company.
(02:57)
The last time government really changed things by breaking up Big Tech was back in the ’90s, when Microsoft was found to have an illegal monopoly for how Internet Explorer was the dominant browser on Windows machines. Now, that ended up stretching out for years and going to the US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, where the US government and Microsoft reached a settlement, and Microsoft agreed to make some changes.
(03:21)
Now, in this Google case, you can expect it to be drawn out, with appeals taking a while. And one former chairman of the FTC told the New York Times that this could even head to the Supreme Court. In other words, you may be Googling this news for a while.
(03:38)
I’m Bridget Carey. If you want to follow updates on this, you can also subscribe to our channel to stay up to date on the latest changes in the world of tech.