The decisions of a United States federal judge by obliging Google to share data on its research tool and prohibit exclusive contracts can be as important for the entire industry as for the company itself. The result, less turbulent than it could be expected, still raises doubts about the future of online searches and the strength of artificial intelligence startups to fight against their consolidated peers.
In a lawsuit filed by the United States Department of Justice against Alphabet (), controller of the world’s leading search engine, the agency argued that Google would have violated the regulation against monopolies to maintain its dominant search engine.
Since competitor Microsoft () faced the court between the late 1990s and the beginning of the 2000s in the case that evaluated anti -concorrecial practices in the computer market, none of the giants of technology has faced something similar again. At that time, a judge evaluated if Microsoft contracts with personal computer manufacturers and internet services to prioritize their programs would violate legislation against monopolies.
Free tool
XP Simulator
Learn in 1 minute how much your money can yield
The decision? Yes, Microsoft adopted anticoncorrested practices. Company agreements with personal computer manufacturers forced them not to offer competing browsers on fear that they could weaken the strength of their operating system, Windows, the PC industry leader at the time.
Similarities to the case of Google are not restricted to the fact that they are the only two in which the government has won a giant of the technology industry accused of circumventing competitive guidelines. Part of the process filed by the Justice Department argued that Microsoft contracts with developers who used their technology on devices and browsers made the use of rivals unfeasible.
This is why Judge Amit Mehta, responsible for judging Alphabet’s case, has decided to prohibit Google Firmly Exclusive Contracts. In one of its negotiations, Google has signed an estimated $ 20 billion contract with Apple () to make its search engine the standard in consultations via the Safari browser.
Continues after advertising
In an opinion memorandum published in 2023, Mehta even used the case involving Microsoft as an example of a legal standard for monopoly cases in the sector.
But there is a difference there. The logic of Microsoft contracts did not pay a jackpot for exclusivity, but simply refuses to close agreements with companies that did not accept exclusivity of their programs.
The agreement closed by the company with the court in 2011 imposed various restrictions on business with the Windows operating system and the sharing of application programming interfaces with outsourced companies, as well as a kind of independent governance council. Over the past few decades, experts have argued that measures may have helped ensure a competition environment to expand startups like Google itself in the early 2000s.
Continues after advertising
Can I have turned the game?
Part of the doubt now revolves around the real effect of Alphabet drugs: the company, which was in danger of having to separate arms like Android or Chrome, underwent less severe restrictions. Since the dissemination of Judge Mehta’s decisions, the company’s shares have jumped more than 11%.
At first, Google needs to share information about its search engine with other companies, which can privilege consolidated competitors such as Microsoft itself as well as artificial intelligence startups that threaten the company’s business model, such as OpenAi.
Since the explosion of OpenAi’s chatgpt, Google’s business model, based on ads in its search engine, has become a reason for fear on the market. Generative may cause a break in the online search habit never before foreseen by Alphabet.
Continues after advertising
“When the court decision speaks of sharing with competitors, we have to wait for some specification to know who will be the competitors with access, and what type of data will be shared,” says FGV Artificial Intelligence expert Kenneth Corrêa.
For experts it is still not clear whether the remedies proposed in the decision against Alphabet will be able to make way for OpenAi itself, or competitors such as perplexity and Anthropic, are able to dethrine Alphabet – which also has its own AI chat, Gemini.
When an Apple executive witnessed during Google’s trial, he argued that the success of generative artificial intelligence tools would be reducing the competitive risk around the search engine. AI “changed the course of this case,” Mehta wrote in his decision, according to a New York Times publication.
