Google is appealing a federal court ruling that declared it an illegal online search monopolist. The company filed a notice of appeal on Friday, requesting a stay on the court-ordered measures to restore competition in the online search market.
Lee-Anne Mulholland, Google’s vice president of regulatory affairs, said in a blog post, “As we have long said, the court’s August 2024 decision ignores the reality that people use Google because they want to, not because they are forced to.” “The decision failed to take into account the rapid pace of innovation and intense competition coming from established players and well-funded start-ups. And it rejected compelling testimony from browser makers like Apple and Mozilla, who said they chose to feature Google because it offers the highest quality search experience for their consumers.”
Google is demanding that measures be halted that would require it to share search data and syndicate services with rivals, arguing that the measures would “endanger Americans’ privacy and discourage rivals from creating their own products – ultimately stifling the innovation that keeps America at the forefront of global technology.” The lawsuit, first filed by the Justice Department in October 2020, would delay any action required by Google. The DOJ did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“These are Fortune 500 companies, and they have nowhere else to go but Google.”
DC-based federal judge Amit Mehta ruled in 2024 that Google maintained an illegal monopoly on “general search services” and “general search text advertising.” Mehta found that Google deprived rivals of fair competition by entering into exclusionary contracts with phone makers and browsers to make its search products the default. The result was a durable monopoly whose “partners have concluded that switching default search providers is financially unfeasible for fear of sacrificing hundreds of millions or billions of dollars in Google-paid revenue share”, Mehta wrote. “These are Fortune 500 companies, and they have nowhere else to go but Google.”
But Mehta ultimately fell short of the DOJ’s expectations in his settlement decision, refusing to break up the company by demanding the sale of its Chrome browser, which the government argued was a major distribution point for search services. Instead he ordered the company to share search information with competitors to help them gain a foothold in the market in an effort to restore competition for search services.
Google had to wait until Mehta issued his remedy decision in September before appealing against the inherent monopoly search finding. The case could ultimately drag on for at least a few more years, especially if it goes all the way to the Supreme Court.
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