Google has appealed a US district judge’s landmark antitrust ruling that found the company illegally held a monopoly in online search. The tech giant argues that the court’s decision “ignored the reality that people use Google because they want to, not because they’re forced to.”
In its announcement on Friday, Google said the ruling by Judge Amit Mehta failed to account for the pace of innovation and intense competition the company faces. The company is requesting a pause on implementing a series of fixes aimed at limiting its monopoly power, which some observers have viewed as too lenient.
Judge Mehta acknowledged the rapid changes to Google’s business when he issued his remedies in September, writing that the emergence of generative artificial intelligence (AI) had changed the course of the case. However, he refused to grant government lawyers’ request for a Google breakup that would include a spin-off of Chrome, the world’s most popular browser.
Instead, the judge pushed for less rigorous remedies, including a requirement that Google share certain data with “qualified competitors” as deemed by the court. This data was to include portions of its search index, Google’s massive inventory of web content that functions like a map of the internet.
The judge also called for Google to allow certain competitors to display the tech giant’s search results as their own in a bid to give upstarts the time and resources they need to innovate.
Google’s vice president for regulatory affairs, Lee-Anne Mulholland, has balked at being forced to share search data and syndication services with rivals, justifying the request for a halt to implementing the order.
“These mandates would risk Americans’ privacy and discourage competitors from building their own products — ultimately stifling the innovation that keeps the U.S. at the forefront of global technology,” Mulholland wrote.
While the company has invested growing sums of cash into AI, those ambitions have come under scrutiny. Last month, the EU opened an investigation into Google over its AI summaries which appear above search results. The European Commission said it would probe whether Google used data from websites to provide the service and failed to offer appropriate compensation to publishers.
Google said the investigation risked stifling innovation in a competitive market. This week, Google parent Alphabet became the fourth company ever to reach a market capitalisation of $4tn.
