I woke up last morning to headlines declaring Google guilty of “monopolizing search.” After five years of legal warfare, millions in taxpayer money, and enough documents to fill a warehouse, a federal judge in Washington D.C. finally delivered the verdict everyone was waiting for.
Except… it wasn’t the verdict anyone expected.
Let me set the scene for you. This whole circus started back in October 2020 when the Department of Justice, joined by eleven state attorneys general, filed what they called the most important antitrust case in a generation. United States v. Google LLC was supposed to be the government’s big swing at Big Tech their chance to prove they could still regulate the giants of Silicon Valley.
The case was built on Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, a law from 1890 that makes it illegal to “monopolize” or attempt to monopolize any market. Yes, you heard that right, they’re using a law from the horse-and-buggy era to regulate internet search. The Sherman Act was originally designed to break up railroad and oil trusts. Now it’s being used to police algorithms.
What Is Antitrust, Really?
Before we dive into Google’s case, let’s talk about what antitrust actually is, because most people have no idea.
Antitrust laws were created in the late 1800s when a handful of industrialists controlled entire industries. John D. Rockefeller’s Standard Oil controlled 90% of oil refining. J.P. Morgan’s trusts dominated steel and railroads. These weren’t just successful companies, they were using tactics like predatory pricing (selling below cost to destroy competitors) and exclusive dealing arrangements backed by threats.
The Sherman Act (1890), the Clayton Act (1914), and the Federal Trade Commission Act (1914) were supposed to stop this. The idea was simple: prevent any single company from getting so powerful it could dictate terms to an entire market.
Sounds reasonable for the 1890s, right? When you could count major companies on your fingers and switching costs were enormous, try changing railroads when there’s only one track to your town.
But here’s the thing: we don’t live in 1890. We live in a world where you can switch search engines in two clicks. Where new competitors can launch from a garage and reach a billion users in a few years. Where the biggest companies of 2010 are footnotes in 2025.
Yet we’re still using these dusty old laws, pretending the internet works like a railroad monopoly.
The Government’s Case Against Google
The DOJ’s complaint against Google was 64 pages of legal theater. Their core argument? Google pays billions to companies like Apple, Samsung, Mozilla, and wireless carriers to be the default search engine on devices and browsers. In 2021 alone, Google paid out $26.3 billion for these default positions.
The government claimed this created an illegal “web of exclusionary agreements” that shut out competitors. They said Google controlled 89.2% of general search in the U.S. (94.9% on mobile), and these default deals were the moat protecting their castle.
But here’s where their argument falls apart. They had to prove not just that Google was dominant, but that they gained or maintained that dominance through anticompetitive means. Being successful isn’t illegal. Being chosen by consumers isn’t illegal. You have to actually harm competition or consumers.
The government tried to argue consumer harm by saying Google’s dominance led to lower quality search results and less privacy protection. But they couldn’t explain why, if Google’s product was getting worse, people weren’t switching to the dozens of available alternatives.
They also argued Google’s deals prevented rivals from achieving scale. Microsoft’s Bing needs search volume to improve its algorithms, they said, and Google’s defaults starved them of data. Except Microsoft has billions in cash, owns Windows, and has been trying to buy search share for fifteen years. If money could buy market share, Bing would have it.
Five Years of Legal Process, Five Minutes of Remedies
The five-year case culminated in a 9-week trial starting in September 2023, featuring testimonies from executives at Google, Apple, Microsoft, and Samsung. The government presented internal emails where Google executives worried about competition (shocking: businesses care about competitors!). They showed how much Google paid for defaults ($20 billion to Apple alone in 2022). They painted a picture of a company obsessed with maintaining dominance.
Google’s defense was simple: we won because we’re better. People choose us because we deliver superior results. The default deals are just marketing, like paying for shelf space at a grocery store. Users can switch anytime they want, they just don’t want to.
On August 5, 2024, Judge Amit Mehta issued his verdict: guilty. Google had violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act. The headlines went wild. “Google Loses Historic Antitrust Case!” “Monopolist Google Finally Held Accountable!”
Then came time for remedies, the punishment phase. The DOJ went for the jugular. They wanted “structural relief,” which is fancy talk for breaking up the company. Sell Chrome! Spin off Android! End all default deals! Create a level playing field!
But when Judge Mehta issued his final remedies order on September 2, 2025, it was like watching a lion turn into a housecat.
Here’s what he actually ordered:
- Google can keep Chrome
- Google can keep Android
- Google can continue paying for default placement (yes, including the Apple deal)—though certain tying and exclusivity arrangements are barred, and revenue-share conditions can’t lock in defaults for more than one year
- Google must share a one-time snapshot of limited search index metadata with qualified competitors
- Google must allow rivals to access some aggregated user interaction data (but not ads data or Gemini training data)
- Google can’t make exclusive deals for AI products like Gemini
That’s it. After five years, that’s the earth-shattering remedy. Google basically has to share some homework with the class and promise not to hog all the AI toys.
Why the Judge Chickened Out (His Own Words)
Judge Mehta’s remedies opinion is fascinating because he essentially admits the case was outdated before it ended. He specifically cited the rise of generative AI as a reason to avoid harsh structural remedies.
As he put it, the court is being “asked to gaze into a crystal ball and look to the future. Not exactly a judge’s forte.” When rejecting a ban on default payments, he wrote: “The court cannot predict to any degree of certainty that one or more of these effects will in fact occur.”
Think about that. The judge is literally saying: “While we were having this trial about search engines, AI changed everything and I have no idea what happens next, so I’m not going to do anything drastic.”
ChatGPT launched in November 2022, in the middle of this. By the time of the remedy phase, Claude, Perplexity, and dozens of AI assistants were beginning to compete with Google in the search space. The court noted generative AI as a nascent competitive threat even as Google’s own AI Overviews actually increased U.S. queries by 1.5-2%, showing the complex dynamics at play.
The judge saw this evolving landscape and realized any dramatic intervention would be like performing surgery on a patient who’s already evolving into a different species. So he opted for the legal equivalent of “thoughts and prayers.”
Why This Matters (And Why It Doesn’t)
This case matters because it was supposed to be the template for regulating Big Tech. The DOJ has similar cases pending against Meta, Amazon, and Apple. If they couldn’t get meaningful remedies against Google despite winning on liability, what hope do they have elsewhere?
It also matters because it reveals the fundamental absurdity of using 1890s laws for 2020s technology. The Sherman Act was written for a world of railroads and oil refineries, where switching costs were enormous and competition required massive capital investment. Applying it to software, where switching is free and instant, where competitors can emerge overnight is like using a steam engine manual to fix a quantum computer.
But here’s why it doesn’t matter: the market is already doing what the court couldn’t. Young people increasingly start their searches on TikTok or Instagram (Google’s own SVP Prabhakar Raghavan noted that around 40% of young people use these platforms for local discovery like finding lunch spots). ChatGPT is replacing Google for homework help and coding questions. About 56% of U.S. consumers start product searches on Amazon, not Google, according to eMarketer data.
The judge acknowledged the generative AI shift. Wall Street knows this. That’s why Alphabet’s stock rose more than 7% after the “devastating” ruling. Apple’s stock rose more than 3% too.
The Antitrust Industrial Complex
Here’s what this is really about: jobs. There’s an entire industry built around antitrust lawyers, economists, consultants, academics, regulators. The DOJ’s Antitrust Division employs roughly 740-780 people. Law firms make hundreds of millions on these cases. Economists charge $2,000 an hour to testify about “market definition.”
They need cases like this to justify their existence. They need to be seen “doing something” about Big Tech. Even when that something is ultimately nothing.
It’s a self-perpetuating machine. Politicians rail against Big Tech to get votes. Regulators bring cases to look tough. Lawyers bill hours. Academics write papers. Everyone gets paid. And nothing actually changes because the market moves faster than the legal system ever could.
What This Means for Capitalism
This case is a perfect example of why antitrust is anti-capitalism. Real capitalism is about creative destruction, new companies destroying old ones through innovation. It’s messy, violent, and beautiful. Winners win until they don’t. No referee required.
But antitrust assumes markets need government supervision. It assumes dominance is permanent without intervention. It assumes consumers are helpless sheep who need protection from successful companies.
History proves that innovation matters most:
- Western Union’s telegram monopoly? Destroyed by the telephone
- AT&T’s telephone monopoly? Broken up by antitrust in 1982, but also disrupted by mobile and internet calling
- IBM’s mainframe monopoly? Destroyed by personal computers
- Microsoft’s OS monopoly? Subject to antitrust remedies in 2001, but more importantly diminished by mobile computing
- BlackBerry’s enterprise email monopoly? Destroyed by the iPhone
While antitrust played a role in some cases (AT&T and Microsoft most notably), the primary driver of change has consistently been innovation and technological disruption.
The Real Monopoly in the Room
While we’re debating whether Google’s 89.2% market share in search is a problem, let’s talk about the organization with 100% market share in governance: the government.
They have a monopoly on legal violence. On currency creation. On taxation. On law enforcement. You can’t opt out. You can’t choose a competitor. You can’t switch to a better provider when their service sucks.
That’s actual monopoly power, the kind enforced at gunpoint, not through better products.
And this is the institution we trust to regulate competition? The ultimate monopolist is going to ensure fair competition? It’s like putting a wolf in charge of sheep safety.
What Actually Happens Next
Google will appeal to the D.C. Circuit, then probably the Supreme Court. This will take 2-3 more years minimum. By then, the search landscape will be unrecognizable. AI agents will be doing our searches. Voice assistants will be everywhere. Kids growing up today might never type a search query.
The legal system will still be arguing about defaults on browsers while the market has moved on to brain-computer interfaces or whatever comes next.
Meanwhile, Google will keep innovating or it won’t. Competitors will keep competing. Users will keep choosing. The market will keep evolving. All without any help from Judge Mehta or the DOJ.
The Lesson
This case proves what free-market advocates have been saying forever: markets regulate themselves better than governments ever could. By the time government identifies a “problem,” the market is already solving it. By the time a remedy is ordered, the problem no longer exists.
Google’s search dominance is already facing pressure from AI competitors. Not because of this case, but because that’s what happens to all dominance, it erodes. Someone builds something better. User preferences change. Technology evolves. The mighty fall. The cycle continues.
Antitrust doesn’t accelerate this process. If anything, it slows it down by creating regulatory moats that protect incumbents. Once you’re big enough to be sued for antitrust, you’re big enough to handle the legal costs. It’s the emerging competitors who can’t afford five-year legal battles.
The Bottom Line
The government spent five years and millions of dollars to achieve basically nothing. Google remains intact. The market remains unchanged. The only winners are the lawyers who billed for this circus.
Judge Mehta found Google guilty but gave them a parking ticket. The market yawned. Stock prices rose. Everyone moved on.
Because everyone except antitrust lawyers understands a simple truth: monopolies are temporary, innovation is forever, and markets don’t need referees.
Google will fall someday. Not because a judge ordered it. Not because regulators demanded it. But because someone, somewhere, will build something better. And we’ll all switch without asking permission.
That’s capitalism. Everything else is just expensive theater.
And today’s ruling proved it.