After months of legal wrangling that pitted Alphabet’s Google against the government, a US judge this week conclusively ruled that Google has illegally monopolised the search market.

Judge Amit Mehta found that the billions Google pays to other companies including the likes of Apple and Samsung to make its search engine the default option on smartphones and web browsers effectively blocks competitors from succeeding in the market.

“Google’s distribution agreements foreclose a substantial portion of the general search services market and impair rivals’ opportunities to compete,” said Mehta.

Now that Google has been branded as a monopoly, questions are swirling as to what the remedial action might be. The plaintiffs have contended that the deals Google struck with other companies have prevented search engines such as DuckDuckGo or Microsoft’s Bing from obtaining the volume of data they require to improve their products and thereby challenge Google.

As ChannelNews reported earlier today, one such remedial proposed by analysts could be for Google to terminate those agreements with other companies for it to be the default search engine on their devices in exchange for a cut of Google’s advertising revenue.

But the government is pushing for “structural relief” – which could possibly mean the breakup of the company and the possible separation of its search business from Alphabet’s products such as Android and Chrome.

If that is the route the government insists and the courts agree, it could end up being the biggest forced breakup of a US company since AT&T was dismantled in 1984.

Under US law, being a monopoly isn’t illegal. But attempts to illegally maintain a monopoly, especially using predatory measures, generally invites the wrath of antitrust enforcers.

Justice Mehta has scheduled a hearing next month to discuss the timing for a separate remedy trial.

Google is likely to strongly resist any calls for its breakup. It has pointed to Mehta’s decision which refers to Google as “the best search engine in the US” and one that has “superior product quality” because of its investments in innovation.

While Google admits that it pays for its search engine to be pre-installed on mobile phones and browsers, it likened those deals to ones that cereal companies make with grocery stores for prime shelf space. It doesn’t view its actions as one that strangles competition.

The latest case isn’t the only one that Google is fighting. The Justice Department has filed a separate antitrust suit against Google over its advertising technology business in January last year. That case is going to trial next month.

Apart from the US, Google is also being scrutinised in Europe where new laws such as the Digital Markets Act seek to reign in the seemingly unfettered reign of Big Tech.

In June, the EU accused Google of favouring its advertising technology business at the cost of its adtech rivals, advertisers and online publishers, and instructed it to divest the entire division.

Under the Digital Markets Act, large tech companies such as Meta and Google, referred to as “gatekeepers” will not be allowed to favour their own services over those of rivals on their platforms, will be stopped from combining personal data across their different services, and also prohibited from using data collected from third-party merchants to compete against them.