In a major setback for Google this week, a US judge ruled that the company was a monopolist and acted illegally to maintain its monopoly.

Now, the companies that seemingly teamed up with Google as it carried out its monopolist practices stand to lose tens of billions as a result of the ruling.

The US Justice department which brought the lawsuit against Google contended that the company has paid other firms such as Apple and Samsung billions over decades for prime placement on smartphones and web browsers.

Analysts have now said that one of the ways that Google could avoid being penalised as a result of the ruling is for it to terminate agreements which makes its search engine a default on devices from those companies.

Google headquarters in California

Google headquarters in California

Google pays Apple US$20 billion (A$30.69 billion) annually, or about 36 percent of what it earns from search advertising made through the Safari browser, for the privilege, according to Morgan Stanley analysts.

The agreement is believed to run until at least September 2026 and Apple has the right to unilaterally extend it for another two years.

Analysts have suggested that if Google’s deal with Apple is undone, Apple could take a 4-6 per cent hit to its profit.

Justice Amit Mehta who made the ruling this week against Google has scheduled a hearing next month to discuss the timing for a separate remedy trial. Whether what analysts suggest will be enough, or if the government pushes to breakup the company entirely remains to be seen.

However, Apple being forced to move away from exclusive agreements with Google may not be a complete setback for it as it’s already struck a partnership with OpenAI earlier this year.

OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, recently announced that it had begun trialing its new AI search engine platform called SearchGPT.