Google products vs. antitrust

Google is under the microscope following a ruling last week that deemed the tech giant has illegally abused its search monopoly.

It is perhaps the most followed will-they-won’t-they story since Ross and Rachel. Will the court order a break-up? (insert “we were on a break” joke)

What’s going on? In 2020, the Department of Justice started investigating Google’s enormous yearly $26 billion payment to Apple which secures Google as the default search engine of all Apple devices.

The DoJ deemed this behaviour not cool (or as a violation of antitrust laws, we can’t remember) as it may prevent consumers from choosing a different engine and potential alternative search engines from ever competing (unless they got $27 billion in their back pocket).

Four years later and here we are: a federal judge ruled the behaviour as “illegal abuse of monopoly” and is considering the next move.

What now? Google is so massive, it’s unclear what a break-up would actually mean. There are four realistic products Google could split out:

1. Search

2. YouTube

3. Advertising

4. Android

At this point, no one knows how any of this would work.

A court-ordered break-up would be the most significant antitrust move in US history since Microsoft in 2001.