United States Department filed an ant Trust Lawsuit against Google in Washington D.C., alleging that Google engaged in anticompetitive conduct to preserve monopolies in search and search advertising that forms the cornerstones of its vast conglomerate, per other news sources.
The department alleged Google, a unit of Alphabet Inc., is maintaining its status as gatekeeper to the internet through an unlawful web of exclusionary and interlocking business agreements that shut out competitors. The government alleged that Google uses billions of dollars collected from advertisements on its platform to pay mobile-phone manufacturers, carriers, and browsers, like Apple Inc.’s Safari, to maintain Google as their preset, default search engine.
Google owns or controls search distribution channels accounting for about 80% of search queries in the U.S., the lawsuit said. That means Google’s competitors can’t get a meaningful number of search queries and build a scale needed to compete, leaving consumers with less choice and less innovation, and advertisers with less competitive prices, the lawsuit alleged.
The lawsuit follows a Justice Department investigation that has stretched more than a year and comes amid a broader examination of the handful of technology companies that play an outsize role in the U.S. economy and the daily lives of most Americans.
The Justice Department also continues to investigate Google’s ad-tech practices.
