US judge rules Google is a monopoly, search deals with Apple and Mozilla in peril
By Thom Holwerda, 2024-08-05
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https://www.osnews.com/story/140425/us-judge-rules-google-is-a-monopoly-searxh-deals-with-apple-and-mozilla-in-peril/
"That sure is a big news drop for a random Tuesday.
A federal judge ruled that Google violated US antitrust law by
maintaining a monopoly in the search and advertising markets.
"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," according to the court's ruling, which you can read in
full at the bottom of this story. "It has violated Section 2 of the
Sherman Act."
Lauren Feiner at The Verge
Among many other things, the judge mentions Google's own admissions
that the company can do pretty much whatever it wants with Google
Search and its advertisement business, without having to worry
about users opting to go elsewhere or ad buyers leaving the Google
platform. Studies from inside Google itself made it very clear that
Google could systematically make Search worse without it affecting
user and/or usage numbers in any way, shape, or form - because
users have nowhere else to realistically go. While the ability to
raise prices at will without fear of losing customers is a sure
sign of being a monopoly, so is being able to make a product worse
without fear of losing customers, the judge argues.
Google plans to appeal, obviously, and this ruling has nothing yet
to say about potential remedies, so what, exactly, is going to
change is as of yet unknown. Potential remedies will be handled
during the next phase of the proceedings, with the wildest and most
aggressive remedy being a potential break-up of Google, Alphabet,
or whatever it's called today. My sights are definitely set on a
break-up - hopefully followed by Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and
Microsoft - to create some much-needed breathing room into the
technology market, and pave the way for a massive number of
newcomers to compete on much fairer terms.
Of note is that the judge also put yet another nail in the coffin
of Google's various exclusivity deals, most notable with Apple and,
for our interests, with Mozilla. Google pays Apple well over 20
billion dollars a year to be the default search engine on iOS, and
it pays about 80% of Mozilla's revenue to be the default search
engine in Firefox. According to the judge, such deals are
anticompetitive." ...
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