The Department of Justice (DOJ) submitted its revised proposed final judgment on Friday to Judge Amit P. Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in its antitrust case against Google, which now spans three presidential administrations.
The DOJ and the attorneys general of 11 states brought the case against Google under the first Trump administration in October 2020, accusing the company of monopolizing the search engine market. The plaintiffs accused the company of "implementing and enforcing a series of exclusionary agreements with distributors" to foreclose rivals from the search engine market.
The DOJ criticized Google for paying Apple around $10 billion every year to make Google the default search engine on Safari, Apple's default web browser, and Siri—though savvy users can change it. The Justice Department also identified Google's "anti-forking" agreements as anticompetitive. These agreements require Android manufacturers to use Google's version of the Android operating system and provide default distribution of Google's apps and search engine. Manufacturers who don't comply lose access to the Google Play services and are excluded from lucrative revenue sharing agreements.
