How the DOJ Wants to Destroy Google’s Search Monopoly
Movieguide® Contributor
The Department of Justice recently had Google’s search deemed an “unlawful monopoly,” and its next step is to unwind some of that power.
“The government is asking Judge Amit Mehta for four different types of remedies to Google’s anticompetitive power in search engines,” The Verge reported. “They include behavioral remedies, or changes to business practices, as well as structural remedies, which would break up Google. And they’re focused particularly on futureproofing the search industry for the rise of generative AI.”
Movieguide® reported earlier:
Google is breaking the rules to get ahead.
A federal judge ruled on Monday that the company “Broke the law by inking multibillion-dollar deals to make its search engine the default on web browsers and smartphones including devices from Apple and Samsung.”
Judge Amit Mehta revealed that Google has been paying partners to be their preferred search engine — over $26 billion in 2021 alone. Because of this, other competitors didn’t stand a chance.
“While AI might not be a substitute for search engines, the DOJ warns, it ‘will likely become an important feature of the evolving search industry.’ And it aims to prevent Google from using its power in the industry to regain unfair control,” The Verge said.
The DOJ asks that the judge restrain the types of contracts Google can make, mandate rules for nondiscrimination and interoperability, and changes for business structure.
This would likely include limiting Google search’s prominence in Chrome, Play and Android products.
“Fully remedying these harms requires not only ending Google’s control of distribution today, but also ensuring Google cannot control the distribution of tomorrow,” the DOJ said.
Google, protests, of course. It claimed the DOJ’s ideas as “radical” and believes it is “signaling requests that go far beyond the specific legal issues in this case.”
As Google is preloaded on many phones and devices and is the default on many web browsers, the DOJ believes it’s unlikely that consumers will switch to another search engine. Google’s commercial partners will not be motivated to make a switch while Google is paying them. So DOJ says Google’s distribution is the starting point.
“The government says it’s considering restrictions on the contracts Google can strike with phone makers and browser companies, particularly agreements to make Google Search a default or have it preinstalled,” The Verge said.
“Google doesn’t just strike deals with other companies, though — it promotes its search engine and AI business with an array of other Google products, including Chrome, Android, and the Play Store,” The Verge reported. “The DOJ argues this limits the available channels and incentives for rivals to compete. It didn’t offer too many details about how to fix this but said it’s considering both behavioral and structural remedies — in other words, a breakup.”
Several states have also filed a lawsuit that addresses users not realizing they have other choices. They’re suggesting ways Google could support campaigns that inform people about other search engines.
“At trial, the government argued that Google creates a self-reinforcing cycle of dominance through users’ query data,” The Verge said. “Essentially, the more queries a search engine gets, the more information it has about what constitutes a useful answer, and the better the search engine becomes. Because Google’s rivals don’t have the same access to distribution channels that Google does, the DOJ argued, Google is able to siphon away most of these queries, making it much more difficult for rivals to improve their products and effectively compete.”
“The government says it wants to try to ‘offset’ that advantage, potentially by forcing Google to make certain information and aspects of its product available to rivals. That could include things like data, indexes, and models used in ‘AI-assisted search features’ and ranking signals Google uses in search,” The Verge said.
The DOJ has already thought of user privacy concerns. It says genuine concerns should be distinguished from “pretextual arguments.”
“Privacy tradeoffs are a common defense from big tech firms against opening up their ecosystems, but the government is making clear that it doesn’t think they’re a be-all and end-all,” The Verge said. “It’s considering prohibiting Google from using data that ‘cannot be effectively shared with others on the basis of privacy concerns.’
“The government is also concerned with “new and developing features of general search,” particularly generative AI. In this field, it argues much of Google’s power stems from scraping data from sites with “little-to-no bargaining power against Google’s monopoly.” These sites may not want their work used to train AI models, but they “cannot risk retaliation or exclusion from Google” by blocking its crawlers altogether. As a result, the DOJ is considering requiring that Google let sites opt in to search engine inclusion while opting out of inclusion in its AI tools,” The Verge reported.
Google also has the monopoly on general search text ads. Mehta assessed that Google doesn’t consider any competition when it sets prices for its ad products, which is only something that a monopolist company could do.
“To fix this, the government says it’s considering remedies that would ‘create more competition and lower the barriers to entry, which currently require rivals to enter multiple markets at scale,’” The Verge reported. “That could include addressing Google’s use of AI to protect its monopoly power in this market, it says. It’s also looking at licensing or syndicating Google’s ad feed separately from its search results and requiring certain kinds of information Google should provide to advertisers about their performance.”
CNBC says Google will likely appeal, which will add years to the length of the case.
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