A US judge has ruled that Google acted illegally to maintain a monopoly of online search.
The tech giant violated antitrust laws in a decision that could have major implications for the way technology companies do business.
Google was sued by the US Department of Justice in 2020 over its control of about 90% of the online search market.
Prosecutors accused Google of spending billions of dollars to Apple, Samsung, Mozilla and others to be pre-installed as the default search engine across platforms.
The US said it pays more that $10billion a year for that privilege.
This lawsuit is one of several that have been filed against tech companies in an attempt to clamp down and strengthen competition.
Judge Amit Mehta found that Google and its parent company- Alphabet, had paid billions to ensure it is the default search engine on smartphones and browsers.
“After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” the ruling states.
It is unclear what fines Google and Alphabet will face as a result of the hearing.
After the court hearing, Google stated: “This decision recognises that Google offers the best search engine, but concludes that we shouldn’t be allowed to make it easily available."
Other tech giants are also facing lawsuits from federal antitrust regulators including Meta Platforms, which owns Facebook and Amazon.com.
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