A federal judge declared what many have known for years: Google is a monopoly.
Specifically, it has a monopoly over online search and the search text ad market.
If youve used Google in the past few years, you know that it sucks.
Google in the eye of the beholder.© Photo by Leon Neal/Getty Images
But in 2024 all that old magic is gone.
Relevant search results are buried under ads and worthlessAI answers scraped from Reddit.
This286-page rulingissued by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta on Monday helps explain why.
Its the biggest antitrust lawsuit since the DOJ went after Microsoft 20 years ago.
Mehta was unequivocal in his ruling.
Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly, he wrote.
Google comes pre-loaded onto countless devices and browsers.
Its so ubiquitous that its name has become the common verb for searching on the internet.
These distribution deals have forced Googles rivals to find other ways to reach users.
Being the default engine gives it dominance when serving ads.
It uses the ad money to pay to keep itself the default search engine.
And on and on and on.
Plaintiffs easily demonstrated that Google possesses a dominant market share.
Attempts to grab any share of that market have been failures.
Bing only has 5.5% and Duck Duck Go and Yahoo have less than 3%.
And what would happen if Google stopped paying to be the default engine?
A catastrophic loss of revenue.
There are better search engines out there.Kagichannels the old Google feeling but requires a subscription service.
But Google makes switching away from its search engine as painful as possible.
Its not hard to change your default search engine on a mobile machine or PC, exactly.
Its just a pain in the ass.
And the default is Google.
Internal documents quoted in the judgment make it clear that Google knows all this.
Kent Walker, Googles President of Global Affairs pushed back on the judgmentin a public statement.
Walker listed some of the nice things Mehta wrote about Google in the judgment.
So what does all this mean for the user?
The fallout from this might take years to materialize.
Its possible hell recommend a selloff or restructuring of some kind.
As Walker said, Google will appeal.
Billions it earned from its monopoly power.
News from the future, delivered to your present.
Meta Pissed Off Everyone With Poorly Redacted Docs
Meta is being very transparent on accident.
