Get the latest tech news
Google avoids breakup, but has to give up exclusive search deals in antitrust trial
U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta outlined remedies on Tuesday that would bar Google from entering or maintaining exclusive deals that tie the distribution of Search, Chrome, Google Assistant, or Gemini to other apps or revenue arrangements.
During the trial, the judge emphasized that because most users stick with the default, those placements are “extremely valuable real estate” that effectively locked rivals out and knee-capped their ability to challenge Google’s monopoly. It’s also much more limited than the sweeping access the DOJ requested, which potentially included source code, full search ranking algorithms, and broader infrastructure elements, which Google has said would essentially give away its entire intellectual property. “This has inspired a big debate about whether Europeans with the Digital Markets Act have it right,” William Kovacic, a global competition law professor at George Washington University and former Federal Trade Commission commissioner, told TechCrunch.
Or read this on TechCrunch
