Final Shots Fired in Google’s Search Monopoly Trial—Verdict Coming This Summer

The Google vs DOJ search antitrust case is coming to an end, the final day is behind us, as Judge Amit Mehta heard closing arguments on Friday. That trial is supposed to tackle Google’s Search monopoly. It ended last year, but the remedies part of it was conducted in the last month, approximately.

The whole point of this is to restore competition in online search. The Department of Justice (DOJ) has asked for a number of things prior to the trial, including the sale of Chrome and the end to Google’s payments to Apple and other companies to keep Search the default option on various platforms.

Google’s Search monopoly trial has reached its final day, the closing arguments phase

During the final arguments, the DOJ has urged the court to impose aggressive remedies on Google. The remedies that it initially proposed, including the ones mentioned in the previous paragraph. On top of that, the DOJ is asking Mehta to force Google to license some of its core search technology.

Google once again objected to such proposals. The company said that the DOJ’s proposals are out of line with legal precedent. Google, a while back, proposed a number of remedies of its own. As part of them, Gogole proposed an oversight committee to make sure everything is going according to plan.

“Unless Google’s vast payments are eliminated, Google will likely win each search distribution opportunity, given the tremendous advantages it has accrued from over 10 years of monopoly maintenance,” said the DOJ’s lawyers.

Google once again warned against the sale of Chrome

Google’s attorney argued that the data privacy of Chrome’s users will be at risk if the browser and its underlying technology ends up being sold. As a reminder, Chrome has billions of users at this point, and Chromium will have to go with it if it ends up being sold.

When Mehta asked Google’s lead attorney, John Schmidtlein, if spinning off Chrome would be an easier solution than other remedies, he clearly said no.

The DOJ also wants to prevent Google from establishing similar monopoly on the AI side of things. AI is growing very fast, and is a part of the search game now. The DOJ argued that Google could take advantatge of AI in order to boost its search monopoly.

The government also wants Google to share its index and search data, including users’ search queries, clicks, and results. The company would share it with AI developers who want to license it in order to create more competition.

Google argued that doing that would essentially mean giving competitors a handout. The company also once again noted that the DOJ’s remedies are too severe, referring to them as “unprecedented”. The company once again said that they would hurt consumers, the economy, and tech innovation.

The Judge’s decision is expected in August

Judge Amit Mehta is expected to make a final decision in August. After he does, Google is expected to file a request for a stay of the remedies. The company will also appeal the ruling of the initial ruling last year.