Court rules Google's search business an illegal monopoly
Judge Amit Mehta of the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled in United States v. Google that the company held monopoly power in general search services and text advertising and had unlawfully maintained it, violating Section 2 of the Sherman Act. His 277-page opinion stated that "Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly." Google held roughly 90% of desktop search and about 95% of smartphone search, and had paid more than $26 billion in 2021 alone to be the default search engine on new devices. The ruling followed a nine-week bench trial beginning in September 2023 and closing arguments in May 2024. It is not a generative AI case, but it put legal constraints in play around the search business Google was building its AI strategy on top of — a precondition of the AI competition that followed.