Skip to Content, Navigation, or Footer.
The Cornell Daily Sun
Submit a Tip
Sunday, Aug. 10, 2025

GOOGLE-ANTITRUST-REMEDIES-scaled

Google Faces Legal Trouble After Landmark Antitrust Case

Reading time: about 2 minutes

After a landmark antitrust lawsuit regarding anti-competitive practices, Google faces a court order to open its app store, Play, to competitors. The Department of Justice may also ask the company to divide to promote competition in the search engine sector.

Back in August, a U.S. District Court ruled that Google maintains an illegal monopoly within the search engine industry, blocking competitors from gaining a significant portion of the search engine market.

The court found that Google established contracts with large high-tech companies, including Apple and Android, as the default search engine on these devices and their web browsers. The U.S. District Court found that this strategy effectively pushed out competitors like Microsoft Bing and DuckDuckGo, enabling Google to dominate the market.

By monopolizing the Internet search market, Google could boost digital ad prices, increasing its ad revenue. This created a positive feedback loop, allowing Google to further dominate the search market. The ruling found that Google violated Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, which bars businesses from monopolizing interstate commerce.

Google disagreed, asserting that consumers use the search engine simply because they prefer it. Google intends to appeal, claiming that the DOJ's proposals are “radical” and that consumers can choose to change their device's default browser. Google argues, therefore, that it has won users through its quality.

However, Google still faces mounting legal pressure, as a U.S. District Court ordered significant app store changes on Oct. 8. Google must now allow Android users to download competitor platforms. Furthermore, Google cannot pay device manufacturers to preinstall Play.

The DOJ seeks to break up parts of Google to remedy its violations of antitrust law. The DOJ’s divestment proposals, such as forcing Google to divest its Chrome browser and Android OS, are due in November.

Despite the DOJ’s plans, a major Google Search split seems unlikely, according to Prof. George Hay, law. “You can’t have half of a search engine,” said Hay, who believes the remedy to Google’s behavior would not be to compartmentalize the company. Instead, Google would likely need to share some of its data with competitors.

Google also faces pressure in web advertising and the exploding AI market. If it loses its monopoly, the search market could develop drastically, allowing competitors to flood in. On a larger scale, antitrust wins could set a new legal precedent for disrupting high-tech monopolies, allowing the industry to innovate at an accelerated pace.

Google is due to propose its own remedies in December, and a hearing is set for April next year.

Kyle Chun can be reached at ksc224@cornell.edu.


Read More