On August 5, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta released a 277-page ruling against Google in a massive antitrust case, which can be summed up in a four-word quote:

The full, four-year case is complicated, of course, but the context is clear and unambiguous:

After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly. It has violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act. (p. 4)

What does this ruling mean, practically, for search customers and search marketers? Note that I am not a lawyer, and I am interpreting the court’s ruling as a search industry expert.

To spare you the full 277-page read, here are the basics. This case began in October 2020, brought by the U.S. Department of Justice and a number of states (that number increased over time), and went to trial in September 2023, with closing arguments in May 2024.

Under the Sherman Antitrust Act, the court ruled that Google both held a monopoly in the search industry and knowingly worked to maintain that monopoly.

Specifically, the court ruled that Google had monopoly power in both the “general search services” and “general search text ads” markets. Yes, search marketers, that pretty much covers our entire industry. In addition, the court ruled that Google had exclusive and anticompetitive distribution agreements favoring Google Search as a default, and that these agreements drove artificially high prices for Google Ads.

Google has already said they will appeal, and no one knows how long this process could drag out (it could be years). The court has scheduled a remedy hearing for early September to determine appropriate consequences for Google, but this will be a complex and contested process. This isn’t a traffic violation, and there is no simple, standard “sentence.”

So, how might this impact Google consumers in the broadest sense? At this scale, we don’t have much precedent. I’m old enough to remember both the Microsoft (2000) and AT&T (1982) antitrust rulings and the long-term reality looked very different from the initial ruling. Obviously, both companies are still alive and well. While the Microsoft ruling was referenced repeatedly in the Google decision, the market has changed dramatically in 24 years.

I think it’s extremely unlikely (again, I’m not a lawyer) that core Google search will be broken up or divested in any substantial way. Even in the ruling, the court recognizes that Google search is a quality product used by a massive customer base. They go as far as to say “[Google] has long been the best search engine, particularly on mobile devices.” (p. 199).

Practically, there’s also no good way to penalize Google’s search usage. You can’t tell consumers to stop using Google search — you can only make it less convenient. The court specifically recognizes “the power of the default” (p. 228) and how difficult it is to change deep consumer habits. Disrupting access to the product could also cause unforeseen harm.

Note that Google argued extensively that it does have search competitors, attempting to expand the definition to include social media sites (Facebook, TikTok, etc.) and major product search engines like Amazon. Ultimately, the court rejected that argument.

We might see some attempt to separate Android from Google or remove exclusivity, but it’s hard to imagine what that would look like. Would Android phones all be required to install Microsoft Edge and Bing by default? That seems implausible and, again, hits consumers.

Much of the ruling focuses on Google’s exclusivity agreements, especially those that clearly favor Google search products and Google Chrome. It’s likely that this will be a focal point of any proposed remedies, which might mean limiting or even invalidating these agreements.

Any forced change to exclusivity would affect Apple in particular and could change their calculations around developing their own search engine. This does very little to reduce barriers to entry, though, and meaningful competition would still require billions of dollars in investment. Only Microsoft has any real head start at this point.

Honestly, while this is the question most of our audience is asking, I think the most dramatic impact could be on paid search. The court repeatedly asserted that Google held monopoly power that allowed them to drive up prices on Google Ads (predominantly text ads), even noting that Google actively tested raising prices with few-or-no ill effects:

Over the years, Google has tested whether it can profitably raise its text ads prices by 5% or more without losing substantial advertisers, and the results have been largely consistent—it can. (p. 189)

The remedy here could focus on limiting Google Ads pricing in some way or adding transparency for ad buyers. There’s no way for the courts to magically create more competition for ads, so most of their options revolve around price controls. This could be a short-term win for ad customers, but all of those same benefits would apply to competitors as well. It would certainly shake up the paid search industry. Again, this is entirely speculative.

If core search is unaffected and there’s no real way to limit search or accelerate competition, it’s hard to imagine any substantial, long-term impact on organic search marketing. Short-term, uncertainty over this ruling could impact SEO budgets and decisions, but viable competition to Google is not going to be magically wished into existence by the courts.

From a search-industry perspective, Google’s antitrust trial did contain quite a few revelations. Pandu Nayak’s testimony alone was full of gems about Google’s algorithms, as summarized expertly by AJ Kohn last year. If you haven’t read the full article, it’s well worth your time.

The trial also brought some clarity about Google’s massive share of the market. The court determined that Google controlled 94.9% of mobile search queries in 2020 (I believe this is based on the U.S. market). The ruling goes into detail on the incredible scope of Google:

The sheer magnitude of Google’s query volume, or scale, compared to rivals is startling: Users enter nine times more queries on Google than on all rivals combined. On mobile devices, that multiplier balloons to 19 times. NavBoost, one of Google’s core ranking models, runs on 13 months of Google click-and-query data. That is the equivalent of over 17.5 years of Bing data. (p. 230)

Trial documents also laid out the massive amount of investment Google puts into their exclusivity agreements, approaching 26 billion dollars. This rivals any of Google’s core technology investments, and makes their reliance on these agreements plain.

For now, we learn, listen, and wait. I recognize that’s not the most tactically satisfying answer. This decision is significant, to be sure, but even the courts don’t know what the remedy will be, and the appeals process could drag on for months or years. The decision may drive other lawsuits or influence regulatory decisions outside of the US, including in the EU.

Search engines, including Google, will not cease to exist, and the most likely impact on search marketing will probably be on the price and structure of Google Ads. We may see levers pulled to increase competition, but it’s hard to imagine that those will be effective, and they could easily be dwarfed by other industry changes, such as LLM-based engines.