Google is a monopolist: US judge in landmark antitrust case

Google illegally monopolised the search market through exclusive deals, a judge ruled, handing the government a win in its first major antitrust case against a tech giant in more than two decades.

- LEAH NYLEN

Judge Amit Mehta in Washington said that the Alphabet Inc. unit's $26 billion in payments to make its search engine the default option on smartphones and web browsers effectively blocked any other competitor from succeeding in the market.

"Google's distribution agreements foreclose a substantial portion of the general search services market and impair rivals' opportunities to compete," Mehta said in a 286-page ruling.

By monopolising distribution on phones and browsers, Google has been able to consistently raise the prices of online advertising without consequences, Mehta said.

"The trial evidence firmly established that Google's monopoly power, maintained by exclusive distribution agreements, has enabled Google to increase text ads prices without any meaningful competitive constraint," he wrote.

Antitrust enforcers alleged that Google has illegally maintained a monopoly over online search and related advertising. The government said that Google has paid Apple, Samsung Electronics and others billions over decades for prime placement on smartphones and web browsers. This default position has allowed Google to build up the most-used search engine in the world and fueled more than $300 billion in annual revenue largely generated by search ads.