A federal judge ruled that Google engaged in illegal practices to preserve its search engine monopoly, delivering a major antitrust victory to the Justice Department in its effort to rein in Silicon Valley technology giants.
The Wall Street Journal reports Google, which performs about 90 percent of the world’s internet searches, exploited its market dominance to stomp out competitors, U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta said in the long-awaited ruling.
“Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Mehta wrote in his 276-page decision released Monday.
Mehta agreed with the government’s central argument that Google suppressed competition by paying billions of dollars to operators of web browsers and phone manufacturers to make Google their default search engine.
That allowed the company to maintain a dominant position in the sponsored-text advertising that accompanies search results, Mehta said.
A Google spokesman didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
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