Report from the New York Times
In Brief – Federal District Judge Amit Mehta has set out remedies to address Google’s monopoly in general online search, placing limits for six years on the kinds of business deals the company can make with device makers and other digital services providers, and forcing the digital giant to share some search-related data with competitors, but rejecting the harshest recommendations of the US Department of Justice (DoJ), including forcing Google to sell off its market-leading Chrome browser. In his ruling, Mehta said “courts must approach the task of crafting remedies with a healthy dose of humility.” In August 2024, Mehta ruled that Google protected its search monopoly with anti-competitive deals paying huge sums to companies like Apple and Samsung to exclusively promote Google Search. His remedy will limit those deals to keep them from undermining search competition, as well as competition for other apps, such as AI, but not prohibit payments entirely. He also requires Google to share some, but not all, search data with “qualified competitors”. Mehta called out the rapid rise in AI chatbots, which emerged a couple of years after the case was filed in 2020, noting that the new technologies “give the court hope that Google will not simply outbid competitors for distribution if superior products emerge.”
Context – Judge Mehta’s remedies are far closer to what Google was looking for than what the DoJ, State AG plaintiffs, and champions of aggressive Big Tech antitrust wanted. It’s the first good result for Google in an antitrust case in a couple of years. The federal judge who ruled in April that Google had a monopoly over some types of digital advertising technology is beginning the remedies phase of the trial later this month. The DoJ is calling for Google to spin off parts of its AdTech business. Meta faces a ruling in its federal antitrust case this fall. Also launched in 2020, the FTC is trying to unwind the 2012 and 2014 acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. The company must be hoping Judge James Boasberg thinks about TikTok’s rapid rise and the emergence of AI-chatbots like Judge Mehta did. If US courts are restrained in their Big Tech orders, the regulatory regime of the EU Digital Markets Act will only grow in importance and level of scrutiny.