Google Is a Monopoly, so What Happens Now?

A US federal court has ruled that Google acted illegally to maintain its monopoly on internet searches, something we have all known since at least 2015.

The ruling leaves no room for doubt, and should satisfy a Department of Justice that started the case during the Trump Administration, but more importantly, what now? In other words, what measures should be taken now that we know that Google took advantage of its position to prevent other companies from trying to compete with it?

Google has already announced that it will appeal the ruling, which will doubtless take years. Nevertheless, the verdict is going to have profound effects on the internet, because if a company is allowed to consolidate its position as Google has done over the last two decades, dismantling it will have consequences. For companies like Apple, for example, which long ago struck a deal with Google to make its search engine the default option on its devices, the verdict will surely mean the loss of no less than $19 billion a year. A very respectable amount that, although Apple is a very healthy company with a wide variety of revenue streams, it will undoubtedly notice.

The Mozilla Foundation will also be affected: Google dedicated around half a billion dollars each year to ensuring that its search engine would be the default option for the Firefox browser, and unlike what happens with Apple, which has many more sources of income, that payment represented no less than 86% of the €593 million in income obtained by the foundation.

Leaving aside the effects on other companies, what kind of measures should the courts impose? Because if it simply brings those payments to end, the beneficiary would surely be Google, which for a while could maintain its position without paying any money to anyone. To correct the situation and prevent Google from continuing to act as a predatory monopoly, it is necessary to tread carefully and decree significant measures, rather than simply hoping for the best.

For example, Google might be forced to give up its search technology so that other companies could create specialized competitors, an idea that was put into practice in previous antitrust court rulings. Companies like Apple and others might now create their own search engines, generating some kind of competition in this space that would surely be positive for everyone. Maybe Google will be forced to split into several companies, although this rarely happens in such cases.

Such measures could lead to new competitive scenarios on the web, something that, in principle, does not seem like a bad thing. But for the moment, we will have to wait to see what the judge decides. The important thing is that, finally, we have shaken off the inertia and put things in their place: growing through all kinds of maneuvers and consolidating leadership by creating scenarios in which no one else can compete is illegal and negative for the evolution of the web. Given that there are several more cases of this nature raised against other tech giants, it is time to see if, finally, things change, and we return to a web where it is worth innovating.

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This post was previously published on Enrique Dans’ blog.

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