Google Loses Antitrust Lawsuit Over Market Dominance, Here’s How Other Tech Companies Stand

By Danielle Ong

Aug 06 2024, 00:02 AM EDT

Google Faces Italian Antitrust Investigation for Misleading User Consent Practices — The logo of Google is seen at the 2023 Hannover Messe industrial trade fair on April 17, 2023 in Hanover, Germany. Over 4,000 companies, primarily from the energy and engineering sectors, are exhibiting at the fair, with an emphasis on digitalization, connectivity and climate neutrality. Alexander Koerner/Getty Images

A federal judge on Monday ruled that Alphabet's Google broke antitrust laws and held an illegal monopoly in the United States in a landmark ruling against the tech giant.

In a 277-page ruling, Judge Amit P. Mehta of the US District Court for the District of Columbia said Google abused a monopoly over the search business, adding that the company spent tens of billions of dollars on exclusive contracts to secure a dominant position as the global search provider. The judge noted that these contracts gave Google the ability to block out potential rivals, including Microsoft's Bing and DuckDuckGo.

"Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly," Judge Mehta said in his ruling.

It is unclear what penalties Google will face. The ruling could impact how the tech giant makes its search engine available to users. The court could also force Google to allow users to choose between search engines, according to CNN, citing Vanderbilt University law professor Rebecca Allensworth.

Apart from the search lawsuit, Google is also facing another suit over online advertising. In that suit, Google was accused of using anticompetitive mergers and bullying publishers and advertisers into using the company's ad technology. That case is set to go on trial in September.

How Will It Affect Other Tech Companies?

Monday's landmark decision will likely influence other government antitrust lawsuits against large tech companies.

Amazon, for instance, has been sued by the FTC and 17 states in September for allegedly squeezing sellers on its vast marketplace. This practice may have resulted in "artificially higher prices" for consumers.

In March, the Justice Department sued Apple for using its monopoly in the smartphone market to block rivals from offering applications that competed with its products, including cloud-based streaming apps and digital wallets. This inflated prices for consumers and stifled competition.

Meta is also facing an antitrust lawsuit where the FTC accused the company of creating a monopoly in the social media industry after it bought Instagram and WhatsApp. However, Meta argued it only acquired Instagram and WhatsApp as part of its effort to invest heavily in developing innovations for the apps.