Google has lost a major antitrust case over its search dominance.
ADVERTISEMENTA US judge ruled on Monday that Google is a monopoly that has been using its search dominance to stifle competition in a major decision that could shake up big tech.
The judge's decision came nearly a year after the start of a trial pitting regulators against Google in the country's biggest antitrust showdown in decades.
“After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly," US district judge Amit Mehta wrote in a 277-page ruling.
It represents a major setback for Google and its parent company Alphabet, which had argued that its popularity stemmed from consumers' overwhelming desire to use a search engine so good at what it does that it has become synonymous with looking things up online.
Google almost certainly will appeal the decision in a process that could go to the US Supreme Court.
Antitrust regulators at the US Justice Department brought the case four years ago. The case depicted Google as a technological bully that aimed to protect a search engine that generated nearly $240 billion (€219 billion) in revenue last year.
US Justice Department lawyers argued that Google's monopoly enabled it to charge advertisers artificially high prices while also enjoying the luxury of not having to invest more time and money into improving the quality of its search engine.
As expected, Mehta's ruling focused on the billions of dollars Google spends every year to install its search engine as the default option on new cellphones and tech gadgets.
Google ridiculed those allegations, noting that consumers have historically changed search engines when they become disillusioned with the results they were getting.
Mehta's conclusion that Google has been running an illegal monopoly sets up another legal phase to determine what sorts of changes or penalties should be imposed to reverse the damage done and restore a more competitive landscape.
