A US judge has said that Google committed a criminal act to erase its competitors and keep its monopolistic dominance on selling advertising space through the internet search engine.
This antitrust ruling on Monday is a big hit for Alphabet, the parent company of Google, and might change the operations of technology companies.
The U.S. Department of Justice sued Google in 2020 over an alleged monopoly in the online search market owned by the company at approximately 90%.
It is among many cases that have been taken against the big tech companies as the US antitrust regulators try to boost competition in the segment.
At some point this case has been painted as being latent with threatening capabilities for Google and its owner due to the company’s monopoly-like control of the search and online advertising space.
While it has not yet shown how much in penalties sites Google and Alphabet will have to pay because of it. The fines or any other measures will be determined before the close of the hearing that is yet to be conducted.
The government has sought “structural relief,” which in essence means “the freeing up’ of the company and therefore could, in theory, mean the dismantling of this company.
However, in his decision, US District Judge Amit Mehta said that Google has paid billions for preloading its search application for being the default search option on smartphones and browsers.
Google is a monopolist, and it has behaved like one to retain its monopoly. wrote Judge Mehta in a 277-page judgment delivered in the case.
Alphabet Co. threatened to appeal the decision of the ruling.
“This decision acknowledges that Google provides the superior search engine, yet it decides that we cannot let people make such service readily accessible,” the statement from the company stated.
President Joe Biden’s appointee as Attorney General of the United States of America, Merrick Garland, said that the ruling was a ‘historic victory for American people’.
