Alphabet and Google CEO Sundar Pichai met with the Polish Prime Minister at the Prime Minister’s Office in Warsaw, Poland, on March 29, 2022.
Mateusz Wodarczyk | Noor Photos | Getty Images
A U.S. federal judge ruled on Monday Google It illegally monopolizes two market areas: search and text advertising.
The landmark case, filed by the government in 2020, claimed that Google maintained its share of the general search market by erecting strong barriers to entry and feedback loops that maintained its dominance. The court found that Google violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act, which prohibits monopolies.
The ruling marks the first antitrust ruling against a technology company in decades.
“Google is a monopolist and its actions are designed to maintain its monopoly,” Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia wrote in the ruling.
Court focuses on Google’s exclusive search arrangements on Android apple iPhone and iPad devices, saying they help cement Google’s anti-competitive behavior and dominance in the search market.
The court said the universal search service applies to Google’s core search engine, which traditionally competes with Yahoo. General search text ads are text ads that run alongside search results. The court ruled that Google held a monopoly in both areas. However, the ruling held that general search advertising does not belong to the market and there is no monopoly control.
The court also declined to sanction Google for failing to preserve employee chat messages.
The U.S. Department of Justice and a bipartisan group of attorneys general from 38 states and territories, led by Colorado and Nebraska, filed a similar but separate antitrust lawsuit against Google in 2020. (e.g. discovery of evidence).
Alphabet shares fell more than 4% on Monday, dragged down by a general decline in global stock markets.
The Justice Department had no immediate comment. Google did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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