Who’s the real winner in the Google search monopoly lawsuit?

When Google CEO Sundar Pichai sat down for dinner at the White House on a Thursday evening, his relief was palpable. "I'm glad it's over," Pichai responded to Trump, causing an eruption of laughter from the other table guests. "It's a long process," Pichai said. "Appreciate that your administration had a constructive dialogue, and we were able to get it to some resolution." The exchange came after the September 2 ruling by US District Court Judge Amit Mehta. 

The ruling culminated a four-year legal battle that began in 2020 under the Trump administration and continued under Biden. What emerged was a decision that, despite finding Google guilty of maintaining an illegal search monopoly, imposed remedies that left the company's stock soaring and added $230 billion to its market capitalisation practically overnight.

The ruling's constraints on Google appear limited in scope. The judge banned exclusive distribution agreement deals, like the $20 billion one it had with Apple, to be the default search engine on iPhones. However, he allowed Google to continue paying for it as long as the agreements only last for one year at a time and Google doesn't prohibit Apple or others from "simultaneously distributing any other GSE [general search engine], browser, or GenAI product." 

This means that Apple can continue accepting Google's annual payments with only minor contractual adjustments.

The court rejected the Department of Justice's demands, which included forcing Google to divest its Chrome browser or Android operating system. Instead, the company must share some search and user data with competitors, though notably not its advertising data. 

The real winner

Despite years of government litigation and billions in legal fees, Google might have transformed what began as an existential threat into a minor operational adjustment, preserving every element of its business that actually matters. Critics like Gabriel Weinberg of DuckDuckGo declared that "Google will still be allowed to continue to use its monopoly to hold back competitors."

Apple, too, secured a result that maintains its $20 billion annual revenue stream from Google, representing roughly 20.8% of its Services segment revenue. Reports suggest that the ruling allows Apple to renegotiate default payment rates annually to better monetise search across its traditional and new AI-powered search partners. Apple can now potentially auction off its default search placement while continuing to collect Google's payments.

The competitors, like Microsoft's Bing, DuckDuckGo, and AI-powered search alternatives, received concessions that pale in comparison to Google's retained advantages. Access to some Google search data hardly compensates for the decades of infrastructure, user behaviour data, and market positioning. 

What this ruling can mean for other lawsuits

The timing of Pichai's White House appearance raises questions about whether Google's favourable outcome owes as much to political relationships as legal arguments. President Trump's response to the EU's recent $3.5 billion fine against Google for advertising technology violations suggests a stance toward the American tech giant. Trump said in a post on Truth Social that the fine was "unfair" and "discriminatory" and later told reporters he will "be speaking to the European Union."

This becomes relevant when viewed through Google's broader legal challenges. While addressing its search monopoly "resolution" at the White House, Google faces a verdict in a separate case. In April 2025, federal judge Leonie Brinkema ruled that Google violated Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act by "willfully acquiring and maintaining monopoly power." It also found that Google unlawfully tied its publisher ad server (DFP) and ad exchange (AdX) together.

The DOJ argued that Google achieved its monopoly through anti-competitive conduct when it purchased DoubleClick in 2008, which then became the backbone of its ad business. Google then bought AdMeld in 2011 to gain more control over the ad market's supply side. Unlike the search case's remedies, the ad tech verdict could force Google to sell core business units, threatening the $600 billion digital advertising market that forms the backbone of the company's revenue.

During the search remedies phase, Google's Chrome division head Parisa Tabriz argued that "several key features, such as Safe Browsing and the compromised-password notification system, rely on shared Google infrastructure beyond Chrome's direct control." "I don't think it could be recreated," she said.

However, government witness James Mickens, a Harvard computer science professor, countered that "The divestiture of Chrome is feasible from a technical perspective," noting that the company could transfer ownership without significantly disrupting functionality. The judge ultimately sided with Google's complexity argument.

The real monopoly battle remains unresolved

While Google addresses its search victory, the company simultaneously grapples with mounting legal pressures that the September ruling does not address. The privacy violation case concluded just days after the search ruling delivered another result.  A federal jury has ordered Google to pay $425.7 million for improperly snooping on people's smartphones during a nearly decade-long period of intrusions. The verdict reached in San Francisco federal court followed a more than two-week trial in a class-action case covering around 98 million smartphones operating in the US between July 1, 2016, to Sept. 23, 2024.

Even more significantly, the EU's €2.95 billion fine for ad tech violations signals international regulators' approach to reforms. European Commission officials have made clear that structural breakups remain on the table if Google fails to address conflicts of interest in its advertising technology stack.

The search case concluded just as the underlying market was transforming, regardless of regulatory intervention. Judge Mehta noted how "The emergence of GenAI changed the course of this case," observing how quickly the landscape changed over the course of the trial. "No witness at the liability trial testified that GenAI products posed a near-term threat to GSEs. The very first witness at the remedies hearing, by contrast, placed GenAI front and centre as a nascent competitive threat."

Google's real victory may not be in preserving its search monopoly, but in maintaining the integrated technology stack that positions it to compete in the AI era. The search case resolution changes little about Google's competitive position while providing cover for the defence of its advertising technology business. 

As Google faces remedy hearings in its ad tech case soon, its business architecture remains intact, with political relationships that could prove relevant if European regulators continue pressuring tech companies. The test of whether Google "won" its antitrust challenges will come when judges decide whether to break up the advertising technology empire that generates the company's profits.