Google found guilty!

The US Department of Justice has won their case against Google after accusing the search engine giant of violating antitrust laws in its attempt to remain the default search engine on devices and web browsers, with Judge Amit Mehta ruling that "Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly."

One of the key pieces of evidence that swayed Mehta’s decision was the discovery that Google paid Apple over $20B to remain its default search engine. He wrote that the “market reality is that Google is the only real choice,” and that it was “financially infeasible” for Google Partners to switch to another default search engine, as they would stand to lose “hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars that Google pays them as revenue share.”

In response to Mehta’s verdict, the DOJ issued a statement saying “This landmark decision holds Google accountable” and “paves the path for innovation for generations to come and protects access to information for all Americans.”

Although the CEO of DuckDuckGo–who testified against Google during the case–approved of the ruling, he believes that Google “will do anything it can to avoid changing its conduct,” and sure enough, Google has appealed the decision, saying that “Google offers the best search engine, but concludes that we shouldn’t be allowed to make it easily available.”

Its not yet clear how this will affect Google as a business, that will be determined during the next phase, but many anticipate the punishments could range from changing specific business practices to a complete collapse of Google’s search engine business. But its not just Google that will be affected, as Apple clearly gets a substantial amount of money from Google, to make it a default search engine on its devices and browsers.