Google is found guilty of antitrust violations in its search practices.

• On Monday, a federal U.S. judge determined that Google has been in violation of law by maintaining a monopoly in search and text advertising.
• Google's exclusive search arrangements on Android devices and Apple's iPhone and iPad were scrutinized by the court.
• In 2020, the Department of Justice and a group of 38 attorneys general from states and territories, including Colorado and Nebraska, filed separate antitrust lawsuits against Google.

A federal U.S. judge ruled Monday that Google has illegally held a monopoly in two market areas: search and text advertising.

The government's landmark case claimed that Google maintained its search market dominance through strong entry barriers and a self-sustaining feedback loop. The court ruled that Google had violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act, which prohibits monopolies.

The ruling marks the first anti-monopoly decision against a tech company in decades.

In his decision, Judge Amit Mehta stated that Google is a monopolist and has acted as such to preserve its monopoly.

Google's exclusive search arrangements on Android and Apple's iPhone and iPad devices were found by the court to contribute to Google's anticompetitive behavior and market dominance in search.

The court determined that Google's core search engine, where it traditionally competed with Yahoo, falls under the category of general search services. The court also ruled that Google has operated as a monopoly in both general search services and general search text advertising. However, the ruling concluded that general search advertising is not a market, so there can be no monopoly control.

The court refused to impose penalties on Google for not preserving employee chat messages.

In 2020, the Department of Justice and a group of 38 attorneys general from states and territories, led by Colorado and Nebraska, filed separate antitrust lawsuits against Google. These suits were later combined for pretrial purposes, including the discovery of evidence.

On Monday, the stock market experienced a global decline, causing Alphabet shares to fall more than 4%.

Neither the Justice Department nor Google provided an immediate response to requests for comment.

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