The US Justice Department and states successfully sued the tech behemoth in federal court, arguing that it maintained the most popular internet search engine by paying smartphone makers billions of dollars to make Google the default on browsers and devices.
This imposed anti-competitive barriers to entry for prospective new or smaller search engines and strengthened Google’s position, according to the government and 38 states and territories, led by Colorado and Nebraska.
Regulators in the United States have been trying to curb the dominance of tech giants like Google, Apple, Amazon, and Meta through cases taken by the Justice Department as well.
It focused on Google’s exclusive search arrangement for Android, iPhones, and iPads.
The agency said Google dominated roughly 90% of web searches, which Google rejected.Google advertisements, which produce billions of dollars for the firm, were also included in the dispute since the department and states claimed a monopoly was established inside search results. The plaintiffs claimed that the ad prices were higher than what would be expected in a free market, reflecting Google’s dominance.
