Federal judge orders Google to terminate exclusive menus of search distribution but not forcing Google to sell Chrome
The federal judge ruled that Google could not enter exclusive distribution stores for a long time to make his search engine or technology Gemini AI technology to default options on phones and other devices, saying that Google must share some of his search data with competitors, but said he would not force the key assets of $ 2.6.
The decision based on the antitrust antimonopoly case of the Ministry of Justice against the Google-Parent alphabet, stopped what could be the most serious government management in decades to limit the power of the monopoly-A acknowledging that rapid innovations and investments in artificial intelligence have already changed some of the market conditions trying to address.
“Excessive Chrome Google web browser and potential Android Diffritature,” which Google has not used to make illegal restrictions, “wrote the judge of the US District Court on Tuesday 230 pages.
However, he said that the emergence of generative AI “changed the race of this case”, which began in 2020, when and 11 states sued Google for illegally breeders in the monopoly on the Internet search market.
While Google’s dominance made the search market “without summer” for investors of risk capital to startups, when the case was in its earlier phase, the advent of generative AI changed the calculation, Mehta said on Tuesday’s decision.
“The money flowing in this space and how quickly it arrived is stunning,” he wrote.
Google-Parent shares on Tuesday increased by 7.5%in extended trading. Apple, which receives tens of billions of dollars to make Google to the default search engine on the iPhone, recorded its shares after the decision by 3.5%.
“While theoretically, Google is feared from” exclusive shops “for searching, now sets the basics for Apple to continue his agreement and eventually double the AI -related partnership on the road,” wrote Wedbush Securities analyst on Tuesday.
“Now we see green light for a larger partnership of Gemini AI between Apple and Google with this case, now in the rear -view mirror,” Ives wrote.
Google will have to make a certain search index and users’ interaction details available, “qualified cometitors”, MEHTA wrote in the decision, it does not include ADS data. A special technical committee will be created to help implement and promote the remedies of the court that will take six years.
In a statement published on Tuesday, Google cheered the court’s finding that AI creates more competition and more ways to find information to consumers, but said he was concerned about some other corrective measures. “We are worried about how our users and their privacy will affect these requirements, and we will carefully check this decision,” Google said without specifying that he was planning to appeal.
The decision is the failure of the government to consolidate the Big Tech, which also included cases against META and Amazon on Facebook, as well as a separate case against the alphabet including its advertising business.
In August 2024, Judge Mehta decided that the alphabet had maintained an illegal monopoly while searching on the Internet. He found that the company was abusing its dominant market position by paying a device manufacturer such as Apple to become a default search engine for their smartphones and tablets.
Mehta is considering remedies in case the case is honest, including the performance of three weeks of hearing in April and May, which included a number of prominent industrial executions, including the CEO of Alphabet Sundar Pichai and managers from Apple, Openi, News Corp.
Google said he was referring to finding Mehta from 2024 that he had a violent antitrust law. This means that it could last until 2026 or 2027 to reach the final resolution. The case could eventually reach the US Supreme Court.
Unlock Data Index Finding Google
While the court refused to break Google, the applicants’ requests to force Google to share their search data – he thought he had narrowed the ament and types of data that Google had to share.
“The Google Index size gives it a key competitive advantage over the existing small GSE (general search engines) such as DuckduckGo, and developing companies in Genai, such as Chatgpt,” Mehta wrote, remarking that the data would “narrow a scale that created an exclusive Google distribution agreement. followed. ”
According to MeHTA, Google will have to make it available for “browsing” the website that the index, the unique ID and the “spam score” assign every page and how friendly the mobile site is. However, Google will not have to share its “knowledge chart”, a massive database that shows the connection between people, places and things.

Drew Anger/Getty Images
Genai Twist
Mehta’s decision comes to what is already bent for the alphabet. The company is facing the biggest shift in the way people go through the Internet and look for information since Google itself. Chatbots AI from companies such as OpenI, Anthropic and SFERPLEXITY, provide users with brief answers to questions, not link lists.
While Google has tried to integrate chatbot-similar features and ai-general “overviews” into its main search product, Dooild potentially threatens its business model, which sees compensating the operation it sends to other sites, and behind the sponsored line of search results. Search is 56% of the annual income of $ 350 billion and even more of its profits. (The company will not see Google’s profits by segment.)
So far, Google’s business has occurred to AI. Overall, in 2025, Alphabet -related revenue increased by 11%year -on -year, which was $ 105 billion in the first two quarters. Although there is evidence that Google search levels are affected, with the growth of this metric slowing down from high single -digit percent to low one percent, according to Wall Street analysts, the company insists that the search volumes appear.
However, during the key testimony during the MEHTA hearing in May, Apple Eddie Cue said judges that the Apple Safari browser – which uses Google search index – has fallen for the first time in 22 years. This bomb, as it smells alphabetical supplies by 9% – the albeghough price has since recovered and continued to climb.
On Tuesday’s decision, Mehta wrote Refronto on the new AI Conterders crop: “These companies have been financially and technologically in a better position so that they can compete with Google than any traditional search company has been in decades (except perhaps Microsoft).
“Prophylactic effect”
In the recognition of changing market conditions, in particular the rise of artificial AI intelligence, the court seemed to recognize long -term criticism of those who claim that the technology industry is developing so quickly that legal corrective measures are at best ineffective and can potentially even harm.
In fact, previous attempts by the US government are to challenge the dominance on the market for leading technology companies a mixed record of success. The government managed to force AT&T in the mid -80s. But his kidneys attempts in IBM when the monopoly has been dragging for more than ten years. In the end, the government withdrew this case in 1982 and acknowledged that in a 13 -year sale it was submitted that the computer equipment market had changed so dramatically, its claims were largely deepened.
The government adopted Microsoft at the end of the 90s and claimed that its browser association explorer with Windows operating system was anti -Current. The Lower Court agreed and ruled that Microsoft should be divided into two, but this decision was inverted during the dismissal and in 2001 the government and Microsoft achieved a settlement that forced him to avert the Windows Explorer, but maintained intact.
Mehta notes that the simple fact that Google has been sorted in the Federal Court for violating antitrust violations had an alrenys “prophylactic effect” on the company, causing its distribution agrement with various other companies. However, it seemed that he was very well aware of the natural challenge and the danger that he was too prescribed in the middle of the changing landscape of this industry.
“Unlike a typical case where the task of short work is to solve a dispute based on historical facts,” Mehta wrote on Tuesday, “here is short asked to look into the crystal ball and look into the future.
(Tagstotranslate) alphabet