- Sep 26
- 4 min read

Justice for Google

By Andrew Duval and Michael Im Sept. 25, 2024

In what may be a turning point in the history of large technology companies, Judge Amit P. Mehta of the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled on Aug. 5 that Google had created and abused a search engine monopoly. This could potentially result in the first major breakup of a tech corporation, and permanently shake up Big Tech’s relationship with the law.

The ruling ended the case United States v. Google, which began in late 2020 when the Justice Department and several states sued Google over violations of the Sherman Antitrust Act, which disallows anti-competitive agreements and monopolistic behavior. Google was accused of monopolizing internet search through its deals with companies like Apple and Samsung to make its search engine the default option on their devices. The legal proceeding revealed that Google paid Apple approximately $20 billion in 2022 to be the default search engine in its Safari browser, present in iPhones, iPads and Macs. Google Senior Vice President Prabhakar Raghavan testified during the trial that the payments to companies in such deals totaled $26.3 billion in 2021 and represented the company’s largest expenditures for the year.

During the 10-week-long trial, Google defended themselves by stating that Google simply provides a better service than its competitors, such as DuckDuckGo and Microsoft’s Bing, which the ruling acknowledged. Google also argued that rival search engines like Yahoo! had been able to win similar contracts, but did not keep them due to lower product quality. However, the sheer scale of Google’s payments, reaching $18 billion annually to Apple alone, deterred competition from attempting to outbid them, allowing Google to access a much larger customer base and further improve their product. Additionally, their near total control of the search engine market has allowed them to raise ad prices beyond that which the government believed should exist in a free market, resulting in the 2023 case somewhat confusingly named United States v. Google and an upcoming trial on Sept. 9.

“There are many alternatives to Google that have their own unique advantages, such as Ecosia, which pledges to plant trees and combat climate change using proceeds from searches. However, Google’s unfair practices prevent these search engines from receiving the success and attention they deserve,” Freshman Lucas Sutijono said.

After the verdict, Justice Department officials have been weighing their options when it comes to restoring competitive markets. The most radical would be to entirely break off parts of the company, like its Chrome browser or Android operating system, and turn them into entirely new companies. More moderate proposals, such as mandating Google to make its user data publicly available or to revoke the deals they made to preserve Google as the default search engine on several devices or browsers, are being considered, and are seen by experts to be more likely outcomes. However, Bloomberg has reported that lawyers plan to push for the breakup of Google in its Sept. 9 ad monopolization trial.

“Google is a monopoly because it is the default search engine for all phones, and the difficulty of setting another browser makes people not want to go through the hassle. I do not think Google needs to be broken up, but there should be easier ways to access the competitors, like choosing your preferred engine when setting up your phone,” Junior Omar Sanchez Claudio said.

Still, Google’s chief president of global affairs, Kent Walker, has stated that the company plans to appeal the case, harkening back to United States v. Microsoft, a similar 2001 case against Microsoft for monopolistic behavior regarding their browser Internet Explorer. The case concluded similarly, with the Justice Department attempting to break up the company. However, when Microsoft appealed the ruling, they successfully overturned the breakup with the Justice Department eventually settling for a lighter antitrust penalty.

Over the past two decades since United States v. Microsoft, large tech companies have been mostly insulated from antitrust cases through lobbying with their vast financial resources. However, under the Trump and Biden administrations, the government has been much fiercer in investigating these companies, beginning with a 2018 investigation into Facebook’s nonconsensual collection of data from millions of its users. In 2020, a bipartisan House Judiciary subcommittee investigated four large tech companies: Apple, Meta, Amazon and Google, concluding that all four were monopolies.

This has led to all four companies facing antitrust lawsuits, with Google merely being the first to reach a verdict in their case. In Europe, Google has also been charged with numerous antitrust violations for digital ad market manipulation. Whatever punishment Google faces as a result of this ruling, it is speculated to greatly influence these upcoming cases against Big Tech, and the industry as a whole.

About the Contributors

Andrew Duval

Opinions and Feature World editor

Andrew is an avid enjoyer of music and he loves listening to it. He also likes dogs because they are friendly. He loves journalism because of its power to inspire change.

Michael Im

staff writer

Michael Im is a junior at Leland High School and this is his first year as a Staff Writer at journalism. He likes to learn about random topics, play with his dogs, and sleep.