Google v. United States: A Retrospective of Federal Motivations for Antitrust Suits
America’s most ubiquitous search engine is being court-ordered to give other companies a chance. Although the Department of Justice won that Google’s exclusive contracts and search engine market share were monopolistic, the jury is still out on whether the judge’s orders are enough to curtail Google’s dominance. Google now faces mandates to share key search and advertising analytics with competitors, and the company has been barred from using Search in future exclusive contracts: a decision that came after nearly five years of casework. The decision holds far-reaching implications for government and private actors alike, especially with respect to the research and development of artificial intelligence (AI).
Future of artificial intelligence aside, the core of the lawsuit lies in the history of antitrust law. Federal antitrust policy rests on three pillars: the Sherman, Clayton, and Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Acts. The Sherman and FTC Acts prohibit unreasonable restraints on trade and illegal monopolization of industries. The laws treat certain actions, such as price fixing, as categorically illegal. Other acts, including exclusive trade deals, may be illegal depending on their effects on the market. In its lawsuit against Google, the Department of Justice alleged that the company’s exclusive deals with Apple and mobile carriers were anticompetitive, arguing that the court should pursue rule of reason analysis (using an agreement’s positive and negative effects to determine whether it’s anticompetitive).
In 2020, the Department of Justice sued Google, claiming the latter had entered into anticompetitive search engine deals with Apple and mobile carriers. Prosecutors alleged that these deals allowed Google to monopolize the search advertisement market. Google unsuccessfully requested that the case be dismissed a year before the scheduled hearing. Google also made an unsuccessful request to bar Jonathan Kanter, the Assistant Attorney General at the time, from litigating the case on the grounds of his work with rival companies. The trial, which ran from September 12, 2023, to August 5, 2024, concluded with Judge Amit Mehta ruling that Google’s search business constituted an illegal monopoly. Prosecutors had until December 2024 to suggest a remedy, and the remedies trial ran from April 21st to May 6th of 2025.
Many legal observers believed that the case would end with Google being forced to divest from Search entirely. Instead, Mehta ruled that Google need not divest, but must share key search and advertising analytics with competitors and forgo the use of Search in exclusive contracts going forward. In his decision, Mehta noted that because of the nature of this case, he couldn’t issue his judgement based on historical precedent. Unlike nearly every antitrust case before this, he had to base his decision on his predictions for the future, given the entanglement between search analytics and artificial intelligence.
Interests in AI research and development, both from federal and private sources, likely played a large part in the remedies decision. Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill, passed in July 2025, initially proposed a ban on local and state-level regulation of AI over the next ten years. While the proposal was removed from the final bill, provisions for significant federal investment into private AI research companies remain. Further, some investors believe that the court’s light-handed decision could enable a larger, legally uncontested AI partnership between Apple and Google. This belief was mirrored by Wall Street almost immediately, with Google’s stock jumping 8.5 percent and Apple’s stock rising 2.8 percent following the news that it could keep its deal. Testimony from senior officials at ChatGPT and Gemini also played a significant role in the remedies trial.
In line with the multilateral push towards AI research and development, the Department of Justice both foresaw and warned against future AI monopolies. Acting Deputy Director of the Antitrust Division, David Dahlquist, urged the court to consider remedies that would prevent Google from monopolizing Gemini, its generative AI platform. He argued that user metrics from Search could be used to improve Gemini, which, in turn, would lead to more Search traffic. Judge Mehta’s ruling reflects these concerns, noting that the forced divestiture from Search “would be incredibly messy and highly risky.”
Prior remedies to antitrust cases suggest historical precedent for divergent motives for initiating and resolving federal antitrust suits. In United States v. Microsoft (1998), the district court held that Microsoft was engaging in anticompetitive practices and ordered the company to divest assets. Microsoft appealed the decision, and while the Appeals Court upheld the lower court’s finding of anticompetitive behavior, they reversed the split. The case was sent to the D.C. District Court for further review, and Microsoft settled with the Department of Justice to allow the installation of third-party software, a significantly lighter penalty. Throughout the appeals process, courts cited the difficulty of reconciling existing antitrust law with recent technological developments, despite nine states and the District of Columbia appealing under the pretense that the punishment wasn’t harsh enough. Moreover, the decision was developed and finalized during a recession, with the remedy proposed by the DOJ not fundamentally affecting any of Microsoft’s existing products, suggesting the decision may have been made in part to combat the recession.
Judge Mehta’s remedies ruling does not prohibit Google from maintaining all ongoing exclusive contracts, and forgoing divestment of Chrome avoids shaking up the market in the coming years. This decision to defend the omission of remedies designed to slow down Search’s dominance opens questions about the efficacy of the ruling in addressing Google’s illegal conduct.
Federal interpretations of core antitrust policy have historically had difficulty adapting to new periods of market competition. While Judge Mehta’s decision was significant, it didn’t measure up to the Department of Justice’s expectations, with Mehta citing market stability as a concern for harsher sentences. Moreover, Google’s recent involvement with another suit levied by the Department of Justice over advertising practices may, in conjunction with the Search case, significantly change how antitrust is enforced against tech companies, especially those involved with AI research. The uncertainty in the remedies decision, a decision significantly lighter than historical cases like Microsoft, suggests that the unpredictability of AI research and development is truly a first for the American market.