U.S. v. Google: What Both Sides Argued in a Hearing to Fix Its Search Monopoly

For the past three weeks, the Justice Department and Google have questioned more than two dozen witnesses to try to sway a federal judge’s decision over how to address the company’s illegal monopoly in internet search.

On Friday, that hearing in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia is expected to conclude. To fix the monopoly, the government has proposed aggressive measures that include forcing Google to sell its popular Chrome web browser and share proprietary data with competitors. Google has argued that small tweaks to its business practices would be more appropriate.

Both sides will offer closing arguments at the end of the month. Judge Amit P. Mehta, who is presiding over the case, is expected to reach a decision by August. His ruling could have significant implications for Google, its rivals and the way that people look for information online.

Here’s what to know about what was argued at the hearing.

What case does the hearing stem from?

In August, Judge Mehta ruled that Google had broken antitrust law when it paid companies like Apple, Samsung and Mozilla billions of dollars to automatically appear as the search engine in browsers and on smartphones. He also ruled that Google’s monopoly allowed it to inflate the prices for some search ads, adding to its unfair advantage.

Judge Mehta convened the hearing last month to determine how to best address the search monopoly through measures called remedies. Executives from Google, rival search engines and artificial intelligence companies — alongside experts — testified about Google’s power over the internet.

What did the government argue?

The only way to end Google’s dominance in search is by taking significant action, government lawyers said at the hearing.