Google’s empire is under siege

Today, Google will have a final chance to prove to a federal judge that its advertising business isn’t a monopoly. The US Department of Justice spent several weeks earlier this year arguing that Google maintains too much control over web advertising and uses that power to lock in customers, leaving little room for competition. The trial wraps up this week. If it loses, Google could have to make sweeping changes to the core of its business.

Even if the tech behemoth emerges from this trial unscathed, a spreading legal fire still jeopardizes everything it has created. For many years, Google’s sprawling empire has faced little legal scrutiny, allowing the company to freely build up its search engine, browser, operating systems, and line of hardware products that all intersect to bolster one another. It’s the overlap of Google’s massive businesses that has attracted attention from government agencies and tech industry rivals, who are set on taking apart Google’s stronghold piece by piece.

Google now faces threats from all sides: the European Union is probing its compliance with regulations on Big Tech, the US is suing over its search and advertising monopolies, Epic is pressing Google to open the Play Store, and Yelp is targeting Google over local search results. As President-elect Trump enters office, it’s unclear what will happen next. But one thing is certain: this is the most high-stakes moment Google has found itself in yet.

The biggest threat to Google is the government’s antitrust lawsuit targeting Google’s search business, which could result in a major breakup. In August, a federal judge ruled that Google operates a monopoly in the online search market. When laying out its case, the DOJ pointed to several aspects of Google’s business, including its billion-dollar deals with companies like Apple and Mozilla to keep Google as their default search engine. This, the DOJ argues, disincentivizes rivals from launching search engines of their own. Judge Amit Mehta agreed, saying this dominance also allowed Google to hike up prices on search text advertising — or the sponsored links displayed within Google Search.

To bring balance back to the market, the DOJ has proposed that Google make a drastic change: it wants Google to sell its web browser, Chrome. The web browser has been an integral part of Google’s business since its launch in 2008, but the DOJ wants it put into the hands of a third party approved by the court. And the DOJ’s asks don’t end there, as it also wants to prevent Google from favoring its search engine or browser within its own products, such as Android, YouTube, and even its AI chatbot Gemini. Other remedies include opening access to Google’s search syndication system to competitors and letting websites opt out of AI Overviews. If Google doesn’t want to comply with these solutions — or if the remedies don’t do enough to crack open Google’s monopoly — the DOJ proposes that Google divest Android, too.

Yelp is also targeting Google’s search engine with an antitrust case of its own, alleging Google gives preferential treatment to its own local results. The EU has opened an investigation into Google’s compliance with the Digital Markets Act (DMA), and the company recently lost an appeal that would’ve allowed it to get around paying a $2.7 billion antitrust fine stemming from claims that it gave its own shopping results an unfair advantage in Google Search.

The Google Play Store is under fire, too. In 2020, Epic Games sued Google over claims that it created an illegal monopoly by making it harder for developers and users to access other app stores, while also preventing them from using alternative payment processors inside apps. The jury ultimately sided with Epic Games, determining that its Play Store and billing system are illegal monopolies. Last month, Judge James Donato ordered Google to distribute third-party app stores through Google Play, while giving third-party app stores access to all of the apps on the Play Store (unless developers opt out) for the next three years. Though Judge Donato originally asked Google to comply with his order on November 1st, Google won a temporary stay that will put most of these changes on hold while Google appeals the decision.

In the meantime, Google is facing yet another lawsuit from Epic, which accuses the tech giant of colluding with Samsung to suppress third-party app stores by allowing users to download apps from “authorized sources” on new phones.

Google’s ad tech trial poses similarly monumental consequences that could break up its lucrative advertising business, which raked in $237.9 billion in 2023. If the DOJ gets its way, a judge could force Google to create tools that would let third-party companies use its ad tech and give them access to Google’s customers. Closing arguments will be held today, but a verdict isn’t expected for several more months — and by that time, Trump will be in office.

All of these cases will likely conclude under the new administration, and that might affect their outcomes. While President Joe Biden has taken a tougher stance on antitrust enforcement, Trump is expected to take a more hands-off approach to regulation that hasn’t gone unnoticed by company executives. But this still doesn’t mean Google is safe from the Trump administration. The DOJ’s antitrust lawsuit over Google’s search engine was filed in 2020, while Trump was still president. Trump has also long lambasted Google for supposedly surfacing negative search results about him, something he was particularly vocal about in the months leading up to the US presidential election.

Trump called Google search results “rigged” and threatened to pursue criminal charges over claims that the search engine favored his political opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. Though Trump said he would “do something” when asked whether he would break up Google, he suggested the DOJ’s current antitrust lawsuit is “dangerous” because “we don’t want China to have” companies like Google.

Even if nothing comes out of these lawsuits, Google will have to change how it operates to ward off more ire and legal threats. Whether that means being more cautious about business acquisitions or thinking twice when preferencing results in one of its other products, that newfound reprehensiveness could result in damage. In 2019, Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates said the company missed beating Android as the “dominant mobile operating system” because it was “distracted” by the government’s antitrust trial in the early 2000s.

A change in tone has already begun to set in at Google. CEO Sundar Pichai appeared to allude to the search engine’s perceived “bias” against Trump and right-wing politicians in an Election Day memo obtained by The Verge. “Whomever the voters entrust, let’s remember the role we play at work, through the products we build and as a business: to be a trusted source of information to people of every background and belief,” he wrote. Trump has claimed multiple times that he spoke with Pichai on the phone, a possible sign the Google exec is looking to get on Trump’s good side before he assumes office.

Whatever the case, Google has a long fight ahead of it — and it might not get out of this legal web in one piece.