US Department of Justice's Antitrust Actions Against Google and Impact on Apple
TapTechNews August 9th news, The Information said that after the US Department of Justice won the antitrust lawsuit against Google, it would not only weaken the alliance between the company and Apple, but also might seek to make the company implement major changes, such as forcing the spin-off of Android.
According to lawyers, in the next stage of punishing Google's illegal monopoly behavior, the US government may crack down on the company's efforts in its dominant new-generation conversational AI search field and facilitate competitors to erode its 95% market share.
Gene Burrows, a former assistant general counsel of Microsoft, said that Justice Department lawyers would almost certainly ask the judge to take structural remedial measures, such as forcing Google to spin off Android (the judge believes that a large part of the reason why Google has its current monopoly position is due to Android), rather than just imposing behavioral restrictions on the way Google operates the search business and cooperates with companies such as Apple.
In this antitrust case, the US Department of Justice accused Google of unjustly monopolizing the search industry and the online advertising market. In response, the court ruled that Google is a monopoly enterprise and violated the Sherman Act. The judge pointed out that the agreements between Google and companies such as Apple are anti-competitive.
Although Apple is not the defendant in this antitrust case, its multibillion-dollar cooperation with Google is also one of the key grips of the Department of Justice. Google needs to pay Apple tens of billions of dollars every year to maintain its default search engine status on iPhones, iPads, and Macs. According to the data disclosed in court, Google paid Apple 20 billion US dollars (TapTechNews note: currently about 143.411 billion yuan) in bribes in 2022 alone.
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US federal judge rules that Google illegally monopolizes the online search market, and its cooperation with Apple is illegal.