Google avoids the worst in antitrust ruling

Google's Sunchar Pinchai unveiling Chrome — Google will have to share some of its search data with competitors and is barred from paying tech companies to give it precedence

(Image credit: Kimihiro Hoshino / AFP via Getty Images)

What happened

A federal judge in Washington, D.C., Tuesday rejected the government's request to break up Google, after having ruled last year that the company's search engine was an illegal monopoly. But Judge Amit Mehta did order more modest changes, including instructing Google to share some of its search data with "qualified competitors" and barring it from paying tech companies to make its search engine, AI chatbot or Android Play Store "exclusive" services on their smartphones, computers or other devices.

Mehta's opinion was the "most consequential antitrust decision on Big Tech's business practices since a federal judge's failed bid to break up Microsoft in the early 2000s," Politico said. The Justice Department had asked Mehta to force Google to sell its Chrome browser, share expansive data on its search infrastructure and impose other sanctions.

In his ruling, Mehta said he needed to craft antitrust remedies "with a healthy dose of humility," especially given the rise of a competitive generative AI market that could eclipse Google's search dominance without government intervention. Unlike most cases, the court here was "asked to gaze into a crystal ball and look to the future," he said. "Not exactly a judge's forte."

Gabriel Weinberg, the CEO of search competitor DuckDuckGo, called Mehta's remedies "a nothingburger." But Vanderbilt University antitrust law expert Rebecca Haw Allensworth said the changes ordered for Microsoft, also initially considered weak, had opened the internet to competitors, including Google. Given likely appeals, "it could take years" before Google "is required to act on the ruling," Reuters said.

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