Alphabet Inc.’s Google lost the biggest antitrust challenge it has faced when a US judge found Aug. 5 that it illegally monopolized the search market. It was a major win for the US Justice Department and state attorneys general and could result in the breakup of the 25-year-old company.
Judge Amit Mehta of the US District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that $26 billion in payments that Google made to other companies to make its search engine the default option on smartphones and web browsers effectively blocked any other competitor from succeeding in the market. Mehta’s ruling came after a 10-week trial in 2023 — the first on monopolization charges to pit the federal government against a US technology company in more than two decades.