The US Google Search Case

In August 2024, a US federal court ruled that Google had illegally maintained a monopoly in online search. In September 2025, Judge Amit Mehta decided what Google must do about it, rejecting the government's call for a break-up but imposing other restrictions.

The case was brought by the US Department of Justice and more than 30 states. The central finding was that Google kept its dominance by paying billions of dollars a year to companies such as Apple and Samsung to make Google the default search engine on their devices. Because most users never change the default, the court found these deals shut rivals out.

The government asked the court to force Google to sell its Chrome browser and possibly Android. It also asked the court to stop default payments altogether. Judge Mehta refused, saying that selling Chrome would be messy and highly risky. Instead, he banned exclusive deals for Search, Chrome, Google Assistant and Gemini, and ordered Google to share parts of its search index and user interaction data with qualified competitors. Google can still pay to be the default, as long as the deal is not exclusive.

Google appealed last month, and the government has cross-appealed on the decision not to ban default payments. The case has also drawn attention because of AI, with the court considering how chatbots are changing the way people search.

The court preferred rules on conduct to breaking the company up, an approach close to the UK's new digital markets regime.