Will Google Face Consequences for Illegal Search Engine Monopoly?
By Movieguide® Contributor
Google is breaking the rules to get ahead.
A federal judge ruled on Monday that the company “Broke the law by inking multibillion-dollar deals to make its search engine the default on web browsers and smartphones including devices from Apple and Samsung.”
Judge Amit Mehta revealed that Google has been paying partners to be their preferred search engine — over $26 billion in 2021 alone. Because of this, other competitors didn’t stand a chance.
A document from the lawsuit reads:
Google’s dominance eventually attracted the attention of antitrust enforcers—the U.S. Department of Justice and nearly every state’s Attorney General. They homed in on Google’s distribution agreements and in late 2020 filed two separate lawsuits alleging that the agreements and certain other conduct violate Section 2 of the Sherman Act. According to their complaints, Google has unlawfully used the distribution agreements to thwart competition and maintain its monopoly in the market for general search services and in various online advertising markets.
Judge Mehta spoke on the situation. “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly by maintaining its monopoly in two product markets in the United States — general search services and general text advertising — through its exclusive distribution agreements,” she said in the ruling.
Google’s president for global affairs, Kent Walker, responded to the ruling.
This decision recognizes that Google offers the best search engine but concludes that we shouldn’t be allowed to make it easily available. We appreciate the Court’s finding that Google is ‘the industry’s highest-quality search engine, which has earned Google the trust of hundreds of millions of daily users,’ that Google ‘has long been the best search engine, particularly on mobile devices,’ ‘has continued to innovate in search’ and that ‘Apple and Mozilla occasionally assess Google’s search quality relative to its rivals and find Google’s to be superior.’ Given this, and that people are increasingly looking for information in more and more ways, we plan to appeal. As this process continues, we will remain focused on making products that people find helpful and easy to use.
Although “remedies” have not yet been demanded, the judge will soon decide what those will be, and Google will have to make some major changes.
Movieguide® previously reported on Google:
Google recently announced that it will blur explicit imagery that appears in search results and streamline its image-reporting process.
“Earlier this year, we announced a new safeguard that helps protect you and your family from inadvertently encountering explicit imagery on Search,” Google wrote. “With this update, explicit imagery — such as adult or graphic violent content — will now be blurred by default when it appears in Search results.”
“The new SafeSearch blurring setting is rolling out for all users globally this month. You can adjust your settings and turn it off at any time, unless a guardian or school network administrator has locked the setting,” the statement continued.
