Attorney General William Tong issued a statement following the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia's ruling that Google maintained an illegal monopoly in the online search market.
"As Judge Mehta writes in his decision, Google acted as a monopolist and was in direct violation of the Sherman Act by squeezing out other online search competitors and asserting an unlawful stranglehold on the market," said Attorney General Tong. "This is a major antitrust victory, and as we begin the remedy phase of the case, we will work towards hopefully restoring a fair and free competitive online marketplace."
Attorney General Tong, along with a bipartisan coalition of 38 attorneys general and the U.S. Department of Justice, filed lawsuits against Google for anticompetitive conduct violating Section 2 of the Sherman Act in late 2020. The DOJ and Multistate matters were heard together before Judge Mehta.
The lawsuit alleged that Google used exclusionary agreements and other practices to limit rival general search engines' ability to reach consumers. This cemented Google's position as the dominant search engine on computers and mobile devices, denying competitors access to prime online real estate.
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