A wave of government antitrust suits targeting American technology giants — Amazon, Apple, Google and Meta — span different markets and make different allegations of monopolistic misconduct. But their outcomes will determine the rules of competitive conduct in the modern digital economy, where the internet, data and increasingly artificial intelligence shape markets and corporate behavior.
A federal judge’s ruling Tuesday on what steps Google must take to fix its monopoly in online search delivered the first clear answer: You will be restrained, but not broken up or forced to fundamentally change your business practices.
“For the Big Tech firms, this ruling is a relief,” said David Yoffie, a professor at the Harvard Business School.
Tuesday’s decision by Judge Amit P. Mehta — the first major remedies ruling of the modern internet era — signals how the courts may approach reshaping antitrust law after a flurry of activity under both the Trump and Biden administrations to rein in the growing power of a handful of influential tech companies.
The decision, handed down in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, will force Google to share some search data with its competitors and put some restrictions on payments that the company uses to ensure its search engine gets prime placement in web browsers and on smartphones. But it fell far short of government requests to force it to sell its popular Chrome browser and share far more valuable data.
It was a measured approach that signaled judicial reluctance to intervene too deeply in fast-changing, high-tech markets.
“This is a cautious ruling,” said William Kovacic, a law professor at George Washington University and a former chairman of the Federal Trade Commission. “Judge Mehta was not persuaded that the more drastic sanctions proposed by the government were warranted or appropriate.”
Judge Mehta pointed to recent rapid advances in A.I. that are already shaking up the way people search for information as contributing to his caution. In a typical antitrust case, the court is asked to resolve a dispute based on facts of the past, he said.
“Here the court is asked to gaze into a crystal ball and look to the future,” Judge Mehta wrote. “Not exactly a judge’s forte.”
Google had said it planned to appeal the original decision, which could prompt a lengthy court battle that could well end up in the Supreme Court.
In a statement Tuesday, Google said it had concerns about how the data-sharing requirements could affect the privacy of its users. But the company praised Judge Mehta’s finding that A.I. had altered the landscape and said the ruling underlined the company’s stance that competition remains intense.
But if Judge Mehta’s work stands up on appeal — which antitrust experts said was probable — it will influence other judges who are weighing how to handle monopoly cases in their courtrooms.
This month, a federal judge in Virginia is set to hear arguments over how to fix Google’s monopoly over parts of a software system that marketers use to place advertisements on sites around the web. A judge is also set to rule as soon as this fall on whether Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, snuffed out nascent competitors.
The government has also filed lawsuits against Amazon over allegations that it squeezed small merchants; and Apple, saying the company makes it hard for people to ditch its devices.
Judge Mehta’s decision this week on Google search is similar, in broad strokes, to the endgame in the landmark antitrust suit against Microsoft, which was eventually settled in 2001. At the time, Microsoft was found to have illegally stifled competition in personal computer and internet browsing software.
As a result, the judge prohibited the company from imposing contracts on personal computer makers, which, in effect, forced them to use or favor Microsoft’s software. The settlement opened the door for upstarts like Google, but did not break up Microsoft or alter its business.
Judge Mehta’s minimalist package similarly forces Google to abandon “exclusive” contracts with companies like Apple and Mozilla, in which it pays them to make its search engine the one that automatically comes up when someone opens a browser or smartphone home screen. But the payments can continue.
Some legal experts said that part of the decision was confusing, since there can only be one provider for search queries and users rarely change the automatically selected browser on their device.
Judge Mehta’s ruling appeared to be written with an eye toward appeals, antitrust experts said. Higher courts have tended to be skeptical of aggressive antitrust enforcement, and the Supreme Court in particular has taken a conservative stance on antitrust in recent years.
In 2021, the nation’s highest court ruled that the National Collegiate Athletic Association could not use its market power to stop payments to student athletes. In a unanimous decision, the court found a clear antitrust violation in that case.
But Justice Neil M. Gorsuch, writing for the court, went out of his way to emphasize that the ruling in the N.C.A.A. case should not be taken as a sign of a progressive turn by the court’s conservative majority.
“Judges make for poor ‘central planners’ and should never aspire to the role,” he wrote.
Judge Mehta echoed that sentiment throughout his 223-page ruling this week.
“Notwithstanding this power, courts must approach the task of crafting remedies with a healthy dose of humility,” he said in Tuesday’s decision. “This court has done so.”
The government and tech companies could settle their lawsuits, as Microsoft did more than two decades ago. But if not, there may be an opportunity for the Supreme Court to clarify the rules of competitive engagement for dominant companies in the Big Tech era.
The Google antitrust search case is a prime candidate, antitrust experts said, having made the most progress though the courts and considering that it is a huge market used by virtually everyone.
“I think this one will go the distance,” said Mr. Kovacic, the former F.T.C. chairman.
Judge Mehta’s ruling also showed how the rapid change of technology may tie judges’ hands.
The government’s suit against Google was filed in 2020, well before the recent surge of innovation in A.I. Today, how people find information and seek answers is in flux. Internet search is one path, but increasingly so are A.I. chatbots like ChatGPT, Claude, xAI and even Google’s Gemini.
What impact A.I. will have on search, and how soon, is unknown — and a reason cited by the judge in his ruling for his reluctance to choose stronger remedies.
“A.I. is changing the nature of search, and there’s no telling how that’s going to play out,” said Herbert Hovenkamp, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s Carey Law School. “That was clearly a concern.”
But the uncertainty created by A.I. did not necessarily mean the court should do less, said Fiona Scott Morton, an economics professor at the Yale University School of Management.
The government had warned that Google could leverage its dominance in search to give it an unfair advantage in the A.I. race. Google has already embedded its own A.I.’s answers at the top of its search results, and added a tab to its search results page where users can converse with a chatbot about their queries.
“If you do too little, you might be turning A.I. into the next problem,” said Ms. Scott Morton, a former Justice Department antitrust official.
Tripp Mickle contributed reporting.
Steve Lohr writes about technology and its impact on the economy, jobs and the workplace.
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