Get the latest tech news

Google's online search monopoly is illegal, US judge rules

The decision is a major blow to Alphabet, Google's parent company, and could reshape how technology giants operate.

Monday's ruling comes after a 10-week trial in Washington DC, in which prosecutors accused Google of spending billions of dollars annually to Apple, Samsung, Mozilla and others to be pre-installed as the default search engine across platforms. Mr Schmidtlein also argued during the trial that Google still faces intense competition, not just from general search engine firms, such as Microsoft's Bing, but more specialised sites and apps that people use to find restaurants, airline flights and more. "Even if a new entrant were positioned from a quality standpoint to bid for the default when an agreement expires, such a firm could compete only if it were prepared to pay partners upwards of billions of dollars in revenue share," Judge Mehta wrote.

Get the Android app