Google has filed its appeal of the Justice Department’s antitrust lawsuit that ended with a federal judge’s ruling that the company maintained a monopoly on its search business. While the company begins the appeal process, it is also requesting that implementation of remedies from the case, which include requiring Google to share search data with its competitors, also be suspended.
“As we have long said, the Court’s August 2024 decision ignored the reality that people use Google because they want to, not because they have to,” Google said in a statement. “The decision failed to take into account the rapid pace of innovation and intense competition we face from established players and well-funded start-ups. And it ignored compelling testimony from browser makers like Apple and Mozilla, who said they chose to feature Google because it delivers the highest quality search experience to their consumers.”
The company says the requirement to “provide syndication services to competitors” and share research data poses a privacy risk and could “discourage competitors from creating their own products.” Both solutions were compromises based on what the Justice Department had initially proposed, which included forcing Google to sell its Chrome web browser.
After a 10-week trial conducted in 2023, Google was found to have a search monopoly in 2024 due to the placement it maintained as the default search engine on multiple platforms and the control it exercised over which advertisements appeared in search results. Both arguments were key points in the DOJ’s initial 2020 lawsuit.
