Judge Orders Google to Share Search Results to Help Resolve Monopoly

A federal judge on Tuesday barred Alphabet’s Google from paying to be the exclusive search engine on devices and browsers but declined to order more drastic changes that the company had opposed. The judge didn’t bar Google from making payments for distribution of its products, saying such a move would harm downstream partners. He also declined to require other remedies sought by the Justice Department, such as divestiture of Google’s Chrome browser. U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta’s order follows his decision that Google illegally monopolized the search market for more than a decade. That opinion said Google used illegal distribution agreements with companies such as Apple to build and maintain a 90 percent market share and prevent rivals from building competitive alternatives. While Mehta’s earlier ruling was a blow to Google, his decision adopted much of the company’s position on what should happen now. Judge Mehta said a judge’s job was to approach remedies with humility, and he said the competitive dynamics of the marketplace were changing already, largely because of AI technology. “There are strong reasons not to jolt the system and to allow market forces to do the work,” the judge wrote.