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As reported earlier, the Google vs DOJ antitrust trial is now over. Yesterday was the last day of actual court appearances. Up until now, we were aware that the decision is coming in 2024, but we did not know when. Well, the Judge on the case, Amit Mehta, has announced that the Google vs DOJ decision will be made in early May 2024.
Judge will make a decision on Google vs DOJ antitrust case in May 2024
To be more precise, the Judge set closings for May 1-3 next year. Needless to say, that’s quite a long wait for a decision, basically over half a year. It’s not unusual considering the size of this case, actually.
This antitrust case was going on for a little over two months, as it started on September 12 and ended on November 16. We have a rather lengthy article in which we covered this trial since it began, in case you’re interested.
During the trial, the DOJ tried to prove that Google took advantage of its position, and illegally kept its place in the market. Google has a huge market share percentage when it comes to search, close to 90%.
The company had deals with various companies over the years, including both Google and Apple, amongst others. It paid Apple, for example, a staggering amount of $18 billion to stay the default search engine on Safari… and that was just in 2021.
The company paid out over $26 billion to partners in 2021
Overall that same year, Google paid out over $26 billion to partners, as it was revealed during the trial. The DOJ did its best to prove Google’s wrongdoings, and during the trial, various other info popped up.
Do note that the trial itself was semi-private, so we did not get access to all the information, just some tidbits. Plenty of documents passed through the courtroom, though.
Chances are we won’t hear much about this trial since May next year, if at all. It remains to be seen what will the decision be.