United States of America: Issued ruling in antitrust lawsuit against Google concerning its monopoly over search engines (United States v Google)

On 5 August 2024, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia issued its ruling regarding the antitrust lawsuit filed in October 2020 by the Department of Justice (DoJ) along with several Attorneys General (Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, South Carolina, and Texas) against Google for creating and maintaining a monopoly in the internet search engines market. In particular, the court found that Google violated the Sherman Act by unlawfully maintaining its monopoly power in general search services and general text advertising through its exclusive distribution agreements that made Google the default search engine on a range of products in exchange for a share of the advertising revenue generated by searches run on Google.