The federal judge who will decide how to limit Google’s monopoly in search is looking closely at its power in a more nascent market: artificial intelligence.
On Friday in US District Court in Washington, Alphabet Inc.’s Google and the Justice Department began answering Judge Amit Mehta’s final questions in the government’s monopoly case against the search giant. It will be up to Mehta to decide whether to break up the company and reshape the internet or impose more limited penalties.
Mehta’s first questions to the government focused on whether curbing Google’s position in generative AI was a fitting way to address the company’s dominance in search.
“Does the government believe that there is a market for a new search engine to emerge as we think of it today?” he asked. “Do you think somebody is going to come off the sidelines and build a new general search engine in light of what we are now seeing happen in the AI space?”
“The short answer is yes, your honor,” Justice Department lawyer David Dahlquist responded. “We do believe that these remedies that will be proposed will allow that opportunity to occur. The reason we are so focused on gen AI, and the reason you heard a lot of evidence about it, is because that is the new search access point.”
The questions focused on the Justice Department’s proposal for forward-looking, long-term measures to resolve Google’s conduct in the market, which Mehta ruled last year was an illegal monopoly of the online search market. Antitrust regulators have argued that Google’s dominance in traditional search could extend to generative AI, which is becoming a key gateway for how users access information online.
Existential threat
AI chatbots are already seen as an existential threat to traditional search engines, as they can address users’ questions directly with AI-drafted responses — replacing the need to present people with a long list of search results pointing across the web.
The government wants the judge to ban Google from paying device and browser makers to position its search engine as the default option — a bar that would also apply to Google’s artificial intelligence products, including its flagship AI model, Gemini. The US has also asked Mehta to order Google to sell its popular Chrome web browser and share some of the data it collects to create its search results in order for competitors to develop their own search engines.
Google has argued that the government’s proposals are too extreme, saying they would hurt American consumers and the economy, as well as weaken US technological leadership. Google argues that it is the market leader in search because of more than 20 years of innovation. It says people use its service because it is the best.
The company’s lead lawyer John Schmidtlein asserted on Friday that the court should focus on addressing the specific conduct found to be illegal, rather than imposing extensive remedies — including on Google’s generative AI products — that he said could fundamentally restructure the market.
But Mehta also appeared skeptical of the tech giant’s argument for more limited remedies, indicating he is seriously considering including AI-related measures in his decision.
“It seems to me that to simply say, ‘look, just open up the avenues of distribution,’ without providing any further remedies that are forward-looking and that would allow competitors to actually be rivals here, sells the remedy portion of this short,” Mehta commented.
Schmidtlein countered that gen AI products are not in the relevant market for search. “There is no evidence that gen AI products have been harmed by any of the conduct issue in this case,” he said. “They couldn’t have been, they weren’t around, right?”
Perplexity, OpenAI
As the trial unfolded in April and May, some representatives from AI companies told the court they are already being stymied by Google. Perplexity’s Dmitry Shevelenko testified that Google’s contract with Lenovo Group Ltd.’s Motorola blocked the smartphone maker from setting Perplexity as the default assistant on its new devices. Motorola “can’t get out of their Google obligations and so they are unable to change the default assistant on the device,” the Perplexity executive said.
Representatives of two prominent AI startups — OpenAI and Perplexity AI — also testified their companies would be interested in buying Chrome if Google were forced to divest it.
Much of the discussion in the first part of the day focused on what data, and how much of it Google would be forced to syndicate to rivals so they can build their own search engines.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai testified in April that the Justice Department’s proposal to share search data with rivals constituted a “de facto” divestiture of the company’s search engine.
On Friday, Mehta told government lawyer Dahlquist that he is “not looking to kneecap Google” but to instead bolster potential competitors. “We are trying to kickstart competitors, we are not trying to put them on equal footing on day one.”
“We agree with that,” Dahlquist said. “Syndication is not envisioned as a long term remedy, it is a short term bridge to independence.”
Schmidtlein, the Google lawyer, disagreed, telling Mehta that the government seeks to put immediately put competitors on par with Google’s “ingenuity.”
On Friday in US District Court in Washington, Alphabet Inc.’s Google and the Justice Department began answering Judge Amit Mehta’s final questions in the government’s monopoly case against the search giant. It will be up to Mehta to decide whether to break up the company and reshape the internet or impose more limited penalties.
Mehta’s first questions to the government focused on whether curbing Google’s position in generative AI was a fitting way to address the company’s dominance in search.
“Does the government believe that there is a market for a new search engine to emerge as we think of it today?” he asked. “Do you think somebody is going to come off the sidelines and build a new general search engine in light of what we are now seeing happen in the AI space?”
“The short answer is yes, your honor,” Justice Department lawyer David Dahlquist responded. “We do believe that these remedies that will be proposed will allow that opportunity to occur. The reason we are so focused on gen AI, and the reason you heard a lot of evidence about it, is because that is the new search access point.”
The questions focused on the Justice Department’s proposal for forward-looking, long-term measures to resolve Google’s conduct in the market, which Mehta ruled last year was an illegal monopoly of the online search market. Antitrust regulators have argued that Google’s dominance in traditional search could extend to generative AI, which is becoming a key gateway for how users access information online.
Existential threat
AI chatbots are already seen as an existential threat to traditional search engines, as they can address users’ questions directly with AI-drafted responses — replacing the need to present people with a long list of search results pointing across the web.
The government wants the judge to ban Google from paying device and browser makers to position its search engine as the default option — a bar that would also apply to Google’s artificial intelligence products, including its flagship AI model, Gemini. The US has also asked Mehta to order Google to sell its popular Chrome web browser and share some of the data it collects to create its search results in order for competitors to develop their own search engines.
Google has argued that the government’s proposals are too extreme, saying they would hurt American consumers and the economy, as well as weaken US technological leadership. Google argues that it is the market leader in search because of more than 20 years of innovation. It says people use its service because it is the best.
The company’s lead lawyer John Schmidtlein asserted on Friday that the court should focus on addressing the specific conduct found to be illegal, rather than imposing extensive remedies — including on Google’s generative AI products — that he said could fundamentally restructure the market.
But Mehta also appeared skeptical of the tech giant’s argument for more limited remedies, indicating he is seriously considering including AI-related measures in his decision.
“It seems to me that to simply say, ‘look, just open up the avenues of distribution,’ without providing any further remedies that are forward-looking and that would allow competitors to actually be rivals here, sells the remedy portion of this short,” Mehta commented.
Schmidtlein countered that gen AI products are not in the relevant market for search. “There is no evidence that gen AI products have been harmed by any of the conduct issue in this case,” he said. “They couldn’t have been, they weren’t around, right?”
Perplexity, OpenAI
As the trial unfolded in April and May, some representatives from AI companies told the court they are already being stymied by Google. Perplexity’s Dmitry Shevelenko testified that Google’s contract with Lenovo Group Ltd.’s Motorola blocked the smartphone maker from setting Perplexity as the default assistant on its new devices. Motorola “can’t get out of their Google obligations and so they are unable to change the default assistant on the device,” the Perplexity executive said.
Representatives of two prominent AI startups — OpenAI and Perplexity AI — also testified their companies would be interested in buying Chrome if Google were forced to divest it.
Much of the discussion in the first part of the day focused on what data, and how much of it Google would be forced to syndicate to rivals so they can build their own search engines.
Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai testified in April that the Justice Department’s proposal to share search data with rivals constituted a “de facto” divestiture of the company’s search engine.
On Friday, Mehta told government lawyer Dahlquist that he is “not looking to kneecap Google” but to instead bolster potential competitors. “We are trying to kickstart competitors, we are not trying to put them on equal footing on day one.”
“We agree with that,” Dahlquist said. “Syndication is not envisioned as a long term remedy, it is a short term bridge to independence.”
Schmidtlein, the Google lawyer, disagreed, telling Mehta that the government seeks to put immediately put competitors on par with Google’s “ingenuity.”
