Apalogies if I mix up all the different DOJ cases against Google (/s) but a verdict has come: Google isn’t split, Adroid isn’t sold, and Google isn’t allowed to pay to stay atop the search mountain anymore (which hurts FF, Apple, since it’s a lot). Small parts form Google Antitrust Ruling: Company Doesn't Have to Sell Chrome - Business Insider article:
A federal judge on Tuesday spared Google from a breakup after ruling that the tech company’s online search business is a monopoly. […] The Washington, DC-based federal judge said Google would not have sell off its Chrome browser or Android operating system. […] Though Mehta ordered Google to end its exclusive search engine deals, the judge said Google could still strike non-exclusive deals to make its search engine, Chrome browser, and generative AI products the default choice on other platforms, like smartphones and internet browsers.
“Cutting off payments from Google almost certainly will impose substantial — in some cases, crippling — downstream harms to distribution partners, related markets, and consumers, which counsels against a broad payment ban,” Mehta wrote.
Additionally, Mehta ruled that Google share search index and user-interaction data with certain competitors to “deny Google the fruits of its exclusionary acts,” but said it will have to share less information than the Justice Department requested.
In the order, Mehta remarked that while Google remains the dominant player in online search, the legal landscape shifted during the case with the introduction of generative artificial intelligence.
The judge said he crafted the remedies “with a healthy dose of humility.”
“Unlike the typical case where the court’s job is to resolve a dispute based on historic facts, here the court is asked to gaze into a crystal ball and look to the future,” Mehta wrote. “Not exactly a judge’s forte.”
I’m sure more analysis is about to hit online soon…