United States of America: United States District Court for District of Columbia issued memorandum opinion in lawsuits against Google accepting remedies concerning contracts, search index, user-interaction data, and syndication of search and search text advertising services

On 2 September 2025, the United States District Court for the District of Columbia issued a memorandum opinion in the consolidated cases United States of America v Google and State of Colorado v Google. The court accepted Google’s proposed remedies with modifications, adopted parts of the plaintiffs’ remedies, and directed the parties to submit a revised final judgment by 10 September 2025. The judgment must reconcile Section III of Google’s proposal with the portions of the plaintiffs’ proposal approved by the court, and any disputes or requests for clarification must be set out in a Joint Status Report filed on the same date. The court had previously found that Google violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act by using exclusionary contracts to maintain its dominance in search, preventing rivals from achieving the scale needed to compete. While Google remains dominant, the emergence of generative AI has been identified as a potential new source of competition. In its remedies order, the court prohibited Google from entering exclusive contracts for Search, Chrome, Assistant, and Gemini, required it to share a limited search index and user-interaction data, and mandated syndication services for rivals. It rejected calls for divestiture, broad payment bans, choice screens, advertiser data-sharing, and other regulatory-style measures. Compliance will be monitored by a Technical Committee, and the final judgment will remain in effect for six years.