The U.S. sued Google on Tuesday, accusing the $1 trillion company of illegally using its market muscle to hobble rivals in the biggest challenge to the power and influence of Big Tech in decades.
The Justice Department lawsuit could lead to the break-up of an iconic company that has become all but synonymous with the internet and assumed a central role in the day-to-day lives of billions of people around the globe.
Such an outcome is far from assured, however, and the case is likely to take years to resolve.
The lawsuit marks the first time the U.S. has cracked down on a major tech company since it sued Microsoft Corp for anti-competitive practices in 1998. A settlement left the company intact, though the government’s prior foray into Big Tech anti-trust – the 1974 case against AT&T – led to the breakup of the Bell System.
The federal government’s complaint against Alphabet Inc’s , which alleges that Google acted unlawfully to maintain its position in search and search advertising on the internet, was joined by 11 states. “Absent a court order, Google will continue executing its anticompetitive strategy, crippling the competitive process, reducing consumer choice, and stifling innovation,” the lawsuit states.
The government said Google has nearly 90% of all general search engine queries in the United States and almost 95% of searches on mobile.
Attorney General Bill Barr said his investigators had found Google does not compete on the quality of its search results but instead bought its success through payments to mobile phone makers and others.
“The end result is that no one can feasibly challenge Google’s dominance in search and search advertising,” Barr said.
When asked on a conference call if the department was seeking a breakup or another remedy, Ryan Shores, a Justice Department official, said, “Nothing is off the table, but a question of remedies is best addressed by the court after it’s had a chance to hear all the evidence.”
In its complaint, the Justice Department said that Americans were hurt by Google’s actions. In its “request for relief,” it said it was seeking “structural relief as needed to cure any anti-competitive harm.” “Structural relief” in antitrust matters generally means the sale of an asset.
“Ultimately it is consumers and advertisers that suffer from less choice, less innovation and less competitive advertising prices,” the lawsuit states. “So we are asking the court to break Google’s grip on search distribution so the competition and innovation can take hold.”
Google called the lawsuit “deeply flawed,” adding that people “use Google because they choose to – not because they’re forced to or because they can’t find alternatives.”
More lawsuits could be in the offing since probes by state attorneys general into Google’s broader businesses are under way, as well as an investigation of its broader digital advertising businesses. Attorneys general led by Texas are expected to file a separate lawsuit focused on digital advertising as soon as November, while a group led by Colorado is contemplating a more expansive lawsuit against Google.
The lawsuit comes more than a year after the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission began antitrust investigations into four big tech companies: Amazon.com Inc , Apple, Facebook Inc and Google.
Seven years ago, the FTC settled an antitrust probe into Google over alleged bias in its search function to favor its products, among other issues. The settlement came over the objections of some FTC staff attorneys.
Google has faced similar legal challenges overseas.
The European Union fined Google $1.7 billion in 2019 for stopping websites from using Google’s rivals to find advertisers, $2.6 billion in 2017 for favoring its own shopping business in search, and $4.9 billion in 2018 for blocking rivals on its wireless Android operating system.
