A judge will soon rule whether Google’s vast empire constitutes a monopoly

03 May 2024 , 18:40

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Closing arguments in the government’s case alleging Google is a monopoly that abuses its power over the internet were delivered Friday, ending the formal part of one of the most important antitrust cases of the decade.

In the quarter century since Google was founded, the company has grown mind-bogglingly big. Every day, billions of people around the world ask questions on Google Search, send an email with Gmail or navigate their commute using Google Maps. The tech giant dominates the internet economy, consistently spends more than almost any other group or company on lobbying and over the years has rapidly expanded its business by buying hundreds of other firms. In 2023, it generated $307 billion in revenue, the equivalent of the gross domestic product of Finland.

The judge’s ruling, which is expected in the coming months, could put new limits on Google’s ability to run its search empire. The company may be barred from paying billions to secure prime placement for its search bar on Apple’s iPhones or other web browsers. It could even be forced to sell off part of its business, like the Chrome browser, and open up competition to other search engines. The judge could also rule that Google isn’t a monopoly after all, which would be a major setback for the government and antitrust advocates who say the power of Big Tech has grown too large.

Either way, the case will be influential on a series of other major lawsuits against other Big Tech companies, including Amazon and Apple.

Google alone has nine billion-user products. Here’s what they are.

Google search— 4.9 billion users

This is the business at the center of the government’s allegations. Google is the world’s most important search engine, and it truly dominates the space, controlling 92 percent of the market, which equates to 4.9 billion people, according to StatCounter and the International Telecommunications Union. Microsoft’s Bing comes in second with a paltry 3 percent, while a handful of country-specific players like Yandex in Russia or Baidu in China round out the final few percentage points. Google is far and away the world’s most-visited website, with over 86 billion visits a month, according to internet data provider Similarweb. The company’s control of search has allowed it to rake in cash year after year and use that money to expand into other businesses through acquisitions.

Now, the company is beginning to upend search even more. CEO Sundar Pichai said in April the company will begin putting AI-generated answers, which are trained on content scraped from the web, at the top of search results for more of its users. That could upend the web, hurting publishers who rely on traffic from Google for their survival. The AI answers have been in a public test for 11 months, but it still makes up facts and misinterprets questions.

Chrome — 3.4 billion users

Google owns the world’s most popular web browser. The vast majority of desktop computers and a huge portion of mobile phones have Chrome set as the default way for users to interact with the internet. Around 3.4 billion people used Chrome as their web browser as of 2023, according to StatCounter and the International Telecommunications Union. Owning Chrome gives Google the ability to keep its search engine front and center, but also allows it to track people all over the internet, gaining incredible amounts of granular data on online behavior, especially when it comes to advertising and e-commerce. As Chrome took over the internet, web developers began building websites so they would run optimally on the Google-owned browser, and caring less about making them work smoothly on rivals like Microsoft Explorer or Mozilla’s Firefox. Eventually, even Microsoft threw in the towel. It’s new browser, Edge, is built off a version of Chrome. Analysts have said if the judge rules Google is an illegal monopoly, there’s a chance the company could be forced to split up its business, such as turning Chrome into a separate entity.

Android — 3 billion users

More than 3 billion people use smartphones running Google’s Android operating system, the company said in 2021. That’s around 70 percent of all the smartphones in the world. Apple’s iOS is a distant second at 28.5 percent. Like Apple, Google uses its operating system for its own smartphones. But it also makes the software available to other phone and tablet companies, and that’s where Android’s true power comes in. Because Android has become the default operating system for most of the world’s phones, Google can put its other services, like Search, Maps, YouTube and its app store, in front of billions of people.

Google Play Store — 2.5 billion

Around 2.5 billion people use Google’s version of the app store every month, the company says, making it much bigger than Apple’s app store. The Play Store lets Google charge a commission on every app sold, as well as get a cut of transactions made through those apps. The power Google has over the mobile app ecosystem is so great the company has been the target of major lawsuits, alleging it’s using that power to squeeze app developers and take more money from them than they would if the market was more competitive. Android phones are different than iPhones — they don’t require apps to be downloaded by the official app store, and in China, numerous other app stores exist. But in most of the rest of the world, using an Android phone means going through Google to get your apps.

Thomas Brown

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Courts, Monopoly, Internet, Google