The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) along with 11 states is suing Google for allegedly violating antitrust laws. The department said Google engaged in anticompetitive and exclusionary practices in the search and search advertising markets.
In the lawsuit, the DOJ described Google as “the monopoly gatekeeper to the internet for billions of users and countless advertisers worldwide,” with an iron grip over 90% of all search queries, which gives the tech giant unprecedented control over how users search the web.
“As with its historic antitrust actions against AT&T in 1974 and Microsoft in 1998, the Department is again enforcing the Sherman Act to restore the role of competition and open the door to the next wave of innovation—this time in vital digital markets,” said Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey A. Rosen in a statement.
Google’s alleged monopolistic practices
Google allegedly utilized exclusionary agreements to “lock up the primary avenues through which users access search engines, and thus the internet, by requiring that Google be set as the preset default general search engine” on billions of devices,” the DOJ claimed.
