Google under antitrust fire: A monopoly that crosses boundaries

Judge Amit Mehta of the U.S. District Court has determined that Google violated antitrust laws by investing billions of dollars to secure exclusive agreements with developers, network operators, and device manufacturers, thereby functioning as the default search engine. In his 277-page opinion, Mehta stated: "Google is a monopolist and has acted as such to maintain its monopoly." Although users could theoretically switch to competing search engines, this rarely occurs in practice. These default settings are extremely valuable "real estate" for Google, as most users do not go beyond the presets, resulting in Google receiving billions of search queries daily. Google itself is aware of the immense importance of these presets. The company forecasts a significant drop in search queries, leading to billions in losses, should it lose the default setting in Safari. These distribution agreements also have a substantial anticompetitive effect: They reduce the incentive to invest in and innovate search technologies. Judge Mehta further emphasized: "There is no real competition for these contracts. Google has no true rivals." Google did not achieve its market dominance by chance but through the efforts of thousands of highly skilled engineers, continuous innovations, and smart business decisions. The outcome is the highest quality search engine in the industry, earning the trust of hundreds of millions of daily users.