Google’s antitrust ruling left things pretty much the same: What that brave new world looks like

For those hoping Google’s monopoly case would bring big change to Big Tech, yesterday’s ruling was a severe disappointment. As Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives titled his note following the decision: “Government Folds Like Cheap Suit.”

The remedies doled out by US District Court Judge Amit Mehta avoided the most drastic measures and kept Google intact. He did not force the search giant to divest its Chrome browser or Android operating system as the Department of Justice had asked.

While the judge banned exclusive distribution agreement deals, such as the $20 billion one it had with Apple to be the default search engine on iPhones, he allowed Google to continue paying for that pride of placement — 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.” In other words, Apple can continue accepting money from Google to make its search engine the default on iPhones with some minor changes.

The court did order Google to share some search and user data — though not ads data — with competitors. But, all in all, the decision leaves things pretty much as they were. Fortunately for advocates of change, over the course of the trial, which began in 2023, the Big Tech ecosystem has been shifting on its own.

Here’s what that brave not-so-new world looks like now:

Google

Google has already shortened the time periods and gotten rid of exclusivity from its existing agreements, so not much is changing there. Presumably Google will keep paying Apple and Samsung to be the default search engine on their phones, just with some minor tweaks to the details.

Google remains the default search engine in Chrome, the world’s most popular browser, ensuring plenty of traffic to Google’s advertising ecosystem. Google makes the vast majority of its revenue from advertising. Even if Google’s AI assistant, Gemini, is lagging in popularity to OpenAI’s ChatGPT, ChatGPT’s traffic still pales in comparison to what Google.com sees on any given day.

Google itself has been rolling out AI features across its product suite, including at the top of search results. Last month, Google’s head of search, Liz Reid, said that thanks to AI Overviews and AI Mode, Google users were “searching more than ever.” She also denied claims that AI features were killing traffic to other websites, something those other websites don’t agree with.

Apple

Presumably Apple will continue taking money from Google because why not? The roughly $20 billion it gets from Google per year accounts for a big chunk of its Services revenue, not to mention its profit.

Apple also now has other options and can in theory begin taking payments from others interested in putting their products on its coveted iPhones, though most of the alternatives’ pockets are not nearly as deep as Google’s.

As Apple’s Eddy Cue said during the trial, Apple is “actively looking at” adding AI-powered search to its Safari browser, with OpenAI, Perplexity, and Anthropic in the running. “We will add them to the list — they probably won’t be the default,” he had said.

OpenAI

In a bout of supreme irony, the only real challenger to Google’s search monopoly, OpenAI’s ChatGPT, was part of the reason Google gets to hold on to its dominant position.

“The emergence of GenAI changed the course of this case,” the judge wrote, noting 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 center as a nascent competitive threat.”

What the case did do for OpenAI was pave the way for it to use some of Google’s search and user data to become a bigger threat to the search engine. As the judge put it, “Such sharing will deny Google the fruits of its exclusionary acts and promote competition.” (OpenAI has already been leaning on Google to boost its GenAI capabilities without its permission.)

“GenAI platforms could easily obtain Qualified Competitor status & reap the benefits of Google’s prior investments,” JPMorgan analyst Doug Anmuth wrote. “However, we remain positive on Google shares as Google has a clear competitive advantage in AI through its full stack approach.”

In other words, the ruling will give Google competitors a leg up, but Google still wears the crown.