Key Points:
- The U.S. government and states are appealing the recent Google antitrust ruling.
- Prosecutors want tougher penalties, such as forcing the sale of Chrome.
- The judge previously rejected banning Google’s payments to Apple for search defaults.
- Google is counter-appealing the initial verdict that labeled it a monopoly.
The United States government is not backing down in its massive legal fight against Google. On Tuesday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) and a large group of state attorneys general filed paperwork to appeal the outcome of a landmark antitrust case against the tech giant. While they won the initial battle proving Google is a monopoly, they are not satisfied with the punishment the court handed down.
Back in 2024, Federal Judge Amit Mehta ruled that Google broke the law to maintain an illegal grip on the online search market. However, the judge rejected the government’s requests for extreme remedies. He refused to force Google to sell off its popular Chrome web browser or its Android operating system. He also allowed the company to continue its multi-billion dollar payments to Apple, which keeps Google as the default search engine on iPhones.
The government’s appeal suggests it will fight for these stricter penalties. Antitrust enforcers argue that without breaking up the company or stopping these exclusive deals, Google will continue to crush competition. They believe the current remedies are essentially a slap on the wrist for a company that controls how the world finds information.
Google is fighting a two-front war. The company is already appealing Judge Mehta’s original ruling that labeled it a monopoly. At the same time, Google is asking the judge to pause a specific order that requires it to share valuable search data with rivals while the appeals process plays out. Google argues that sharing this proprietary information would cause irreversible harm.
The judge originally hesitated to impose harsh penalties because the tech landscape is shifting so fast. He noted that the rise of generative artificial intelligence, led by companies like OpenAI, now poses a real threat to Google’s dominance.
However, the government disagrees, viewing Google’s power as an enduring problem that needs a structural fix. This appeal guarantees that the legal showdown over the future of the internet will drag on for months, or even years.
