Overview
- U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta found Google illegally maintained a search monopoly and ordered behavioral remedies rather than structural divestitures.
- The ruling bans exclusive default agreements and requires Google to provide rivals with narrowly defined index and user‑interaction data plus search and search‑text‑ad syndication services.
- Mehta said the DOJ overreached in seeking divestitures, noting rapid industry change and nascent competition from GenAI products such as ChatGPT and Perplexity.
- Critics including DuckDuckGo and the American Economic Liberties Project said the measures lack teeth, while industry group NetChoice welcomed the limited scope.
- The decision leaves room for non‑exclusive default deals that benefit partners such as Apple, Google signaled plans to appeal, Alphabet shares rose on the news, and a separate EU action imposed a €2.95 billion fine over ad self‑preferencing.