Google suffered a serious blow in an antitrust lawsuit filed by the U.S. federal government in 2020. Federal Judge Amit Mehta concluded that Google is a monopolist that has spent billions of dollars trying to maintain its monopoly in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act.

Not only is it extremely rare for a large company to be formally ruled to have an illegal monopoly, but antitrust officials have suggested that Google could be dissolved. All depends on the outcome of the remedy, and Google will appeal the ruling and a trial will be held to determine how the search giant will be punished.

What happens next.

The ruling is that Google violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act. The Sherman Act is an antitrust law in effect since 1890, specifically designed to outlaw monopolistic practices and encourage competition. The specific charge was that Google violated two major areas of the Act: general search services and general text advertising through exclusive distribution agreements.

Part of the latter involved Google's exclusive contracts with Apple, whereby Apple received billions of dollars in exchange for Google being the default search engine for Apple's phones and browsers.

Microsoft was previously charged with similar legal violations in the late 90s and accused of monopolizing the web browser market with Windows. Initially, it was alleged that Microsoft had an illegal monopoly, but this decision was overturned on appeal with Microsoft and settled out of court.

Judge Mehta's ruling praised Google's technological prowess and investment in search. However, he noted that the company's exclusive contracts gave it an invisible advantage over other search engines: default delivery.

Whereas the Microsoft ruling was a case of illegally excluding rival browsers and platforms, Google offered significant payments to maintain its advantage. This is where the problem arose, and the antitrust prosecution argued that people rarely change their default settings. Expert witness Antonio Rangel, professor of neuroscience, behavioral psychology, and economics at Caltech, testified that "the vast majority" of searches are done out of habit.

The trial also revealed that Google controls approximately 90% of the online search market.

Google argued that it offered a superior product and was therefore dominant, but Judge Mehta pointed to the "power of default" as helping to maintain Google's dominance in this area. Besides, the more users who use Google, the more data Google can collect, which it can then use to improve the quality of its search results. This is a vicious cycle that puts other search engines like Bing and DuckDuckGo at a disadvantage.

The important thing to note here is that this matter is far from over. Reuters notes that this is likely to be a long process, possibly lasting until 2025 or 2026. This includes Google appealing the ruling to the federal appeals court, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, and the U.S. Supreme Court. And Google has confirmed that the battle is far from over.

Kent Walker, Google's president of global affairs, said, "This ruling acknowledges that Google offers the best search engine, but concludes that it should not be allowed to make it easily available." Walker also said that Google appreciates that the court stated on the record that Google is "the highest quality search engine in the industry, and because of that, Google is trusted by hundreds of millions of users every day." " He said Google "has long been the best search engine, especially on mobile devices," and has "continued to innovate in search," and that "Apple and Mozilla occasionally evaluate Google's search quality against its rivals and determine that Google is better."

"Given this and the fact that people are searching for information in more and more ways, we plan to appeal. As we continue this process, we will remain focused on creating products that people find useful and easy to use."

The specifics of the appeal are not clear at this time, but it is clear that Google will not go down without a fight. Perhaps, but business will continue as usual until the trial runs its course. At that point, we will see how the ruling affects Google and its current corporate structure. [Avi Greengart of analyst firm Techsponential told Tom's Guide that " Government intervention in the tech industry is always a good thing, but by the time this trial is all done with the appeals and remedy process, we may all be using another company's genAI search anyway." In other words, it will still be some time before any impact is actually felt by consumers.

However, the impact on consumers is not comparable to how this ruling will affect other antitrust cases against major tech companies in the future.

Luther Lowe, head of public policy at Y Combinator, a venture capital startup-backed firm, commented on X: The US v. Google case is split in two. We are now in the relief phase. This ruling has the potential to significantly realign the competitive landscape in favor of "little tech" by weakening Google's gatekeeping power and creating more open competition in search and digital advertising"

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Adam Epstein, co-CEO and President of adMarketplace, also praised Judge Mehta for his thoroughness in "understanding the complexity of the search results and advertising markets and making the right decision. This is a huge victory for the government. And for the first time in decades, we have shown that antitrust law can help clarify the boundaries between democracy and capitalism when it comes to big tech."

Google is hardly the only tech company accused of antitrust violations in recent years, and regulators have lashed out at Apple, Amazon, and Meta, saying that their platforms ensure the dominance of their products while smaller rivals are acquired before they become too threatening. The company is under fire. Google itself is the subject of a second antitrust lawsuit focused on advertising technology, which is scheduled to go to trial next month.

The wheels of the legal system take time to move, and the fact that this litigation has been ongoing since 2020 is a clear indication of that. That means it will be at least a couple of years before the relief and appeals phase actually runs its course. It will be some time before the average consumer feels the impact of this ruling.

Without knowing what the consequences of Google's violation of the antitrust laws will be, it is difficult to say how much this may affect users. Prosecutors have suggested that they may want to break up Google's parent company, Alphabet.

And while this is bad news for Alphabet and Google, the average consumer may not notice any change. For most people, it makes no small difference that the search engine they use to find a recipe for chili is from the same company that dabbles in smartphone software and self-driving cars.

The biggest change will be that Google will no longer be the default search engine on a variety of devices and platforms. So if you set up your iPhone 18 in late 2026, you may find that your smartphone will ask you to choose your own default search engine instead of automatically pushing you to Google. This is similar to how Microsoft's Internet Explorer and Edge ask if you want to install a new Internet browser when you first start up your PC.

Most people will choose Google anyway because it is what they are used to. This means that Google is likely to maintain its dominant position as the leader in the search market; as SoCi Marketing COO Director of Market Insights Damian Rollins said, few consumers will care about Google's dominant position in the search market. Google's dominance in the search market is not a concern for most consumers. But that dominance is now under threat, thanks to the rise of AI-powered alternative search engines and "increasing complaints about Google's declining search quality."

Such a scenario would mean that Google would have to push to ensure that its product is the best, without relying on the fact that most people will use whatever they are told. Given the chance, some might choose to use something else.