Google’s Search Adversarial Litigation: A High-Dimensional Trial Against Google and Apple in the Google-App Store Case

Mehta oversaw a 10-week trial in the Google search case last fall, which culminated in two days of closing arguments in early May. The trial was held in DC District Court and included executives from Apple and Microsoft. The DOJ thinks that the market for general search advertising was illegally monopolized by Google through exclusionary contracts. For example, Google has deals with browser makers like Mozilla and phone manufacturers like Apple and Samsung to make their search engine the default on their products. For some apps, a condition of Play Store access is default status.

One of the most significant revelations from the case was the size of Google’s payments to Apple to secure the default search engine spot on iPhone browsers. An expert witness for Google let slip that the company shares 36 percent of search ad revenue from Safari with Apple. According to Apple, a default position was paid $20 billion by Google.

Google Does It Really Matter: A Grand Jury Wins the Case against Google in Google Search, a Crucial Test of Google’s Deals with partners

Garland said the decision was an historic win. According to the Assistant Attorney General, it will pave the way for innovation for generations to come.

In light of the judgments in San Francisco and Washington, it’s not yet known how to adjust its business. Mehta will hold a separate trial to determine remedies in the search case, and a judge is mulling proposed penalties in the Play litigation. But some changes Google has made in response to antitrust scrutiny in recent years have been costly.

Mehta ruled that Google, with about 90 percent market share, has monopoly power in both general search and general search text ads. He found that Google’s deals with partners harm competition and that Google hadn’t shown otherwise.