Google Monopoly Trial Verdict: The Breakup That Wasn’t

Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google operates an illegal search monopoly, delivering the central verdict in the Google monopoly trial. The decision marked the most consequential antitrust finding against a technology company since the Microsoft case in the late 1990s. 

The Department of Justice pushed for sweeping structural remedies, including the potential sale of Chrome and the separation of Android. The final remedies decision stopped short of a breakup. Chrome and Android remain within Google, and default search payments continue, but exclusive agreements are no longer permitted. 

Markets reacted positively. Shares rose sharply, signalling investor confidence that Google’s core structure would remain intact. 

Yet the ruling addressed a market that was already evolving. When the trial began, generative AI search tools were barely visible. By the remedies phase, AI-driven platforms were answering queries outside the traditional search framework. The case focused on yesterday’s distribution model, while tomorrow’s competition was already emerging. 

Let’s break down what changed and what didn’t. 

The $20 billion default agreement with Apple 

The nine-week trial concluded in late 2023. DOJ and 38 states brought receipts. Google paid Apple $20 billion per year to be Safari’s default search engine, with similar arrangements with Samsung, Mozilla, and every major device maker. Agreements were functionally exclusive; OEMs couldn’t preinstall competing search engines even if they wanted to. 

Numbers told the story. Search is a scale business. More queries generate more data, which trains better algorithms, which attract more queries. Google’s defaults created a self-reinforcing loop competitors couldn’t break. Bing maintains approximately 3% market share despite sustained competitive efforts over the decades. 

Judge Mehta’s ruling was unambiguous: “Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly.” The company did not achieve dominance through product quality alone. It used market power to maintain that dominance through exclusive contracts that violated the Sherman Act. 

The factual record was largely undisputed. The central dispute concerned remedies. 

Why divesting Chrome would’ve changed nothing 

DOJ proposed structural remedies in October 2024. Spin off Chrome. Separate Android. Ban all default payments. Require choice screens showing multiple search options. 

The proposal appeared dramatic, but its practical impact was limited. Chrome handles about 20% of US search queries. Divesting it opens one distribution channel. This would not have dismantled the monopoly because Chrome functions as an access point rather than the search engine itself. A new independent Chrome company would probably still default to Google search because it generates revenue. 

Android’s more complicated. Google could spin it off, but the Android Open Source Project already exists. Manufacturers fork Android constantly. Forcing divestiture might fragment the ecosystem without fixing search competition. 

The September 2025 decision reflected this complexity. Judge Mehta approved behavioral remedies, rejected structural ones. 

Court ordered: Ban exclusive contracts for Search, Chrome, Assistant, and Gemini. Google can still pay for defaults, but deals are limited to one year and can’t lock out competitors. Must share search results and ad data with rivals for five years. The Technical Committee monitors compliance for six years. 

Court rejected: Chrome sale. Android spin-off. Total payment ban. Mandatory choice screens. Full index sharing. 

Judge cited “a healthy dose of humility”. “Court has no expertise in the business of GSEs, the buying and selling of search and text ads, or the engineering of Gen AI technologies.” 

The court signaled concern that ordering a breakup could create consequences beyond its institutional expertise. Antitrust expert Herbert Hovenkamp explained that structural remedies “would have left the monopoly intact” while causing enormous disruption. As a separate company, Chrome still needs revenue. Defaults to Google anyway. 

Google’s dominance comes from data and algorithms, not ownership structure. Breaking up the company doesn’t transfer those advantages to competitors. The Google monopoly trial was framed around distribution power, but its longer-term consequences extend into AI competition and the future structure of search itself. 

ChatGPT changed the game during the trial 

Here’s what made the remedies phase different from the trial: AI search emerged during the gap. 

Generative AI was barely mentioned in the 2023 trial. By 2025, remedies hearings, ChatGPT, and Perplexity will be able to answer queries without requiring a decade of accumulated search data. This development significantly altered the competitive dynamic. 

Traditional search requires massive infrastructure to index billions of pages. Process millions of queries. Refine algorithms over the years. Chicken-and-egg problem: need queries to improve, need quality to get queries. Google’s scale created an insurmountable barrier. 

AI search lowers that barrier significantly. Language models answer questions using training data, not real-time web crawling. Launching such systems does not require infrastructure at Google’s scale. Perplexity started with zero market share and continues to deliver benefits because it solves different problems. 

The court designed remedies assuming this shift. Why share search results and ad data for five years? Gives AI competitors access to query patterns without needing Google’s historical scale. Why ban exclusive contracts on Gemini and Assistant? Prevents Google from using AI products to maintain search dominance, as it did with Chrome. 

But there’s tension here. Remedies target problems that might resolve themselves over time through market evolution. If AI search displaces traditional search, exclusive contracts on traditional search matter less. If it doesn’t displace it, data sharing and contract bans might not be enough. 

Enterprise exposure after the Google monopoly trial 

Enterprises built infrastructure on the assumption that Google’s dominance would continue largely unchanged. That assumption is now being tested from multiple angles. 

Infrastructure and API exposure 

Many internal systems integrate Google search APIs, including knowledge bases, developer tools, and analytics dashboards. These integrations often assume long-term stability and uninterrupted availability. 

However, the court has mandated six years of oversight of compliance through a Technical Committee. While Google’s services remain operational, the regulatory framework surrounding them may evolve or expire once that period concludes. Systems designed around permanent dominance may face structural uncertainty over time. 

Data access and competitive shifts 

Qualified Competitor certification will determine which companies gain access to shared search and advertising data. In the first year, requests are capped at 40% of total query volume. Companies such as DuckDuckGo and Perplexity are expected to qualify. 

This provision grants competitors access to search behavior data and advertising insights that were previously unavailable at scale. While it does not eliminate Google’s structural advantages, it narrows the informational gap that reinforced its dominance for years. 

Contracts, appeals, and AI uncertainty 

Exclusive contract exposure also changes under the ruling. Device procurement agreements containing default search provisions may become unenforceable, as OEMs are now permitted to preinstall multiple search options. Annual limits on default agreements reduce long-term lock-in. 

The appeals timeline introduces additional uncertainty. Google has appealed the decision, and remedies could be delayed, modified, or overturned through 2027 or 2028. 

The court’s remedies assume that traditional search and AI-driven search will coexist. If AI platforms displace traditional search faster than expected, the practical impact of data-sharing provisions could diminish as query volume shifts toward a different model. 

The Ad tech case and its revenue implications for Google

The ad tech case involves a different judge, a different market, and different competitive dynamics. April 2025 ruling in Virginia: Google ran an illegal monopoly in advertising technology. 

The search case targeted distribution, while the ad tech case focuses on monetization. The judge found that Google monopolized publisher ad servers and ad exchanges. DOJ signaled interest in breaking up ad-tech stack. 

The case is still awaiting a remedies decision. But the search case notably carved out advertising data from sharing requirements. Ad tech remedies could be more aggressive. If court orders divestiture of ad business, it affects Google’s revenue model more directly than search remedies do. 

Google settled the Texas case for $1.375 billion in May 2025. Multiple antitrust actions are simultaneously applying pressure from different angles. Search remedies are the lightest of several enforcement actions. 

Organizations tracking regulatory risk should monitor ad tech remedies more closely. Search remedies preserve Google’s business model while opening competition. Ad tech remedies might force structural changes to the revenue-generating model itself. 

Distilled 

The outcome preserved Google’s corporate structure, with Chrome and Android remaining integrated within the company. Google lost in the sense that exclusive deals are banned, competitors gain access to data, and multiple pressure points create uncertainty. 

The market reacted positively because the breakup didn’t happen. But treating the verdict as “business as usual” misses the larger pattern. Search case, ad tech case, Texas settlement, multiple ongoing investigations. Each chips away at a different part of the integrated ecosystem. 

Search remedies matter less in isolation than in combination with everything else happening. Data sharing narrows the scale gap—contract bans open device distribution. Ad tech enforcement threatens monetization. AI competition undermines structural advantages. The disruption is cumulative rather than singular, driven by multiple regulatory and competitive pressures.  

Organizations built on assumptions about Google’s permanent dominance in search need scenario plans for a fragmented landscape. This shift is not the result of a court-ordered breakup. A combination of regulatory pressure, data sharing, contract limits, the emergence of AI, and appeals uncertainty creates multiple possible futures. 

The Internet after Google’s so-called “breakup” may not involve a dismantled company. The Google monopoly trial did not result in a breakup, but it altered the structural assumptions that shaped the last fifteen years of digital competition.