(The Center Square) – Google says it will appeal the court ruling that stated its search engine had become a monopoly.
U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Judge Amit Mehta made many complimentary statements about Google’s search engine in handing down his ruling on Monday. Mehta called Google “a monopolist” and said the tech giant’s exclusive distribution contracts with browser developers, mobile device manufacturers and wireless carriers that make Google search engine the default option.
The company pointed to the judge’s comments in stating they would appeal.
“This decision recognizes that Google offers the best search engine, but concludes that we shouldn’t be allowed to make it easily available,” said Kent Walker, Google’s president of Global Affairs, in an email to The Center Square. “We appreciate the Court’s finding that Google is ‘the industry’s highest quality search engine, which has earned Google the trust of hundreds of millions of daily users’, that Google ‘has long been the best search engine, particularly on mobile devices’, ‘has continued to innovate in search’ and that ‘Apple and Mozilla occasionally assess Google’s search quality relative to its rivals and find Google’s to be superior.’ Given this, and that people are increasingly looking for information in more and more ways, we plan to appeal. As this process continues, we will remain focused on making products that people find helpful and easy to use.”
According to court documents, Google took in $146 billion in advertising revenue in 2021. Google has captured 90% of all search queries in 2020. Microsoft’s Bing was the second-most used search engine with 6% of search queries.
“Google is not a monopoly because consumers have other options, they just consistently choose Google,” said Spence Purnell, director of technology policy at the Reason Foundation. “The court even recognizes that Google’s service is superior due to unique innovations that make it the best for customers.”
Purnell said that when the European Union forced a “choice screen” onto users and eliminated the default choice of Google as a search engine, it didn’t have any impact on Google’s market share.
“The court is relying on the fact that 80% of searches on Edge go through Bing as evidence that ‘defaults drive queries,’ but that ignores the fact that nearly 40 million Bing users per month search for ‘Google’, indicating that users clearly understand they can leave Bing for Google whenever they want – and vice versa,” Purnell said. “The government is adopting a ‘big is bad’ approach without fully considering market and consumer realities.”
North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein was part of a coalition of 38 attorneys general that also sued Google over the issue.
“No company is too big to play by the rules,” Stein said in a media release. “Today is a win for consumers and for healthy competition. I am pleased that we held Google accountable and can now focus on repairing the market and better protecting North Carolina consumers.”
