Google Has Illegal Monopoly on Internet Search, US Court Decision

American technology company Google has suffered a major setback. An American court has said in its decision that Google has violated the anti-trust law. It has spent billions of dollars to become the world’s default search engine and has created an illegal monopoly in Internet search. This is the first major victory for federal authorities against the market dominance of big tech companies.

This decision opens the way for another lawsuit to determine major changes in Google’s functioning. In the US, Washington District Judge Amit Mehta said in his decision, “The court has come to the conclusion that there is monopoly on behalf of Google.” However, this decision of the District Court can be appealed. The company that runs Google Alphabet Its shares fell by about 4.5 percent. Last year, Google’s advertising revenue accounted for 77 percent of Alphabet’s total sales.

Alphabet said it plans to appeal the decision. “This decision recognizes that Google offers the best search engine, but concludes that we should not allow it to be made freely available,” Google said in a statement. Earlier this year, a legal case was filed in the US against iPhone maker Apple for unfairly creating a monopoly in the smartphone market. This case was filed by the US Department of Justice.

The US government has tightened its grip on big tech companies. Earlier, legal cases were also filed against Meta Platforms, which controls social media site Facebook, and e-commerce company Amazon. Apple is accused of making it difficult for messaging apps and smartwatches to run on its smartphones. Competitors have been harmed by its App Store’s policy related to streaming services for games. Investigations have also been conducted against the company in Europe, South Korea and Japan regarding its methods of doing business. Apart from this, rivals like Epic Games had also taken the company to court.