The US Department of Justice in Antimonopoly Affairs against, recognizing the company as a monopolist in the online post market. Judge Amit Mehta, who made this decision, now must determine what measures will be applied to the company. Options can vary from restricting its ability to conclude certain transactions to a possible compulsory separation of the company.
These measures can significantly change the structure of the Google business and its maternal company Alphabet, which, thanks to its search service, has become one of the most valuable in the world. However, there is a fear that these measures can be taken too late to actually affect the dominant position of the company, because Google has already become a synonym for searching on the Internet.
Today, Google controls about 90% of all search queries in the United States, and 95% on mobile devices. The main competitor, the Bing search engine from Microsoft, occupies only 6% of the market. The Google advertising business, based on the search, generates colossal income – $ 175 billion last year, which is more than half of the total income Alphabet.
The European Commission has been trying to limit the market power of Google for many years by imposing multi -billion dollar fines. However, these efforts did not lead to a significant change in the situation: Google still dominates the region. The new rules introduced by the EU in the framework of the Act on digital markets suggest that Android manufacturers must offer users a searches of the search system at the first launch of the device. However, these measures also did not cause serious damage to the Google monopoly.
In the meantime, in the USA, discussions are intensified about the need for more decisive measures against technological giants. A separate case is also carried out against Google related to digital advertising, and in the near future other large companies can be considered, such as Apple and Amazon.
The final result of this business may depend on how successful the new players in the market, such as Openai with their Searchgpt project, supported by Microsoft’s partnership. However, while Google remains an almost unconditional leader in the search market, and the fight against its dominance will be a difficult task for the American authorities.