Antitrust expert: here’s what’s going to happen to Google next

It’s official: Google is a monopoly. 

You can read the full ruling here, but the main finding from US District Judge Amit Mehta’s ruling Monday was, “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,”.

Cornell University economics and law professor and antitrust expert George Hay also simplified it for us:

“It's 280 pages, but when you cut through all the mumbo jumbo it’s very simple: Google has a monopoly power in searches, and they monetize that with search text advertising, and they make a lot of money,” he told Sherwood. “How do they keep their monopoly? The answer is, they have exclusive agreements with Apple and the Android manufacturers to be the default engine.”

Here are some key takeaways:

It sure appears like the court will make Google get rid of its exclusive search agreements

Since this is a bifurcated trial, we’ll have to wait for a second trial to learn what the remedies will be and that will likely take years and years, Hay said, but it will likely involve the court ordering Google to do away with its search agreements with browsers and phone makers.

Through the trial it was revealed that Google paid Apple $20 billion to be the default search engine on the default web browser for iPhones. 

Google estimated in 2020 it could lose up to 80% of its Apple search volume if it gave up its default position, which could translate into up to nearly $33 billion in net revenue.

"You could get rid of Chrome and put in something else, but almost no one does,” Hay said. “The result is that they continue to be dominant, and no one is really going to crack their market share."

Google probably won’t get broken up

Despite some lawmakers calling for Google to be broken up, that probably won’t happen, Hay said.

“Historically, there aren't that many monopoly cases, and courts have very, very rarely ever used an antitrust case to break up a company. It just doesn’t happen.”

Google Search doesn’t have to be good to make money

Google knew it could make search “significantly” worse without losing revenue, according to an internal degradation study conducted in 2020.

"The fact that Google makes product changes without concern that its users might go elsewhere is something only a firm with monopoly power could do,” Mehta wrote.

Microsoft might have the most to gain

Microsoft’s Bing search engine would be the best positioned to scoop up a default search agreement with Apple if Google was forced out of its agreement, said Adam Kovacevich, a former Google executive who now serves as CEO of Chamber of Progress, a Big Tech-funded trade group.

Apple testified at the trial that it was not looking to create its own search engine business. If a court disqualifies Google from renewing that deal, Microsoft could be a lone bidder and snag it at a low price. 

“How do you force consumers not to prefer Google?” Kovacevich said. 

Bing, Google’s largest search competitor, is still a fraction of its size. In 2021, Google made $146 billion of search while Bing made less than $12 billion in 2022. Bing has about 6% market share, compared to Google’s 90%.