A federal judge in Washington on Friday expressed doubts about fully adopting the Justice Department’s demands to dismantle Google’s dominance over online search. Judge Amit Mehta indicated that a more restrained approach might be necessary as he weighs remedies after ruling last year that Google used illegal tactics to maintain its share of the search market.
Mehta is expected to decide by August on steps designed to restore competition, including whether Google should be forced to sell off its Chrome browser and share key data with smaller companies. The Justice Department and several states have also called for an end to Google’s lucrative deals that make it the default search engine on devices from Apple and Samsung.
During the tense proceedings, Mehta pressed government attorneys on whether extreme penalties were the only way to curb Google’s influence, saying many of the issues at hand were far from straightforward. Google responded by arguing that breaking up the company would harm innovation and consumer choice rather than foster real competition.
AI Disrupts Definition of Search
The hearing grew more complicated as Mehta confronted both sides with the rapid changes in the search landscape, especially as artificial intelligence threatens to reshape how people access information. He openly questioned whether consumers would even want a traditional search engine given the rise of new AI platforms that do much more than just provide web links.
Eddy Cue, a senior executive at Apple, testified that more people are bypassing standard search tools entirely by using AI powered applications, even though Google remains the default for Safari users. This trend, Cue said, is already leading to fewer direct searches within browsers.
The government’s lawyers argued that Google’s hold over the search market has allowed it to train its own AI models with massive amounts of user data, giving the company an advantage as the next wave of technology emerges. Nick Turley of OpenAI testified that access to Chrome or Google’s search data would help ChatGPT improve, and even stated the company might wish to acquire Chrome if it became available.
Judge Mehta raised the issue of whether AI companies that barely existed during the original trial should now be treated as legitimate search competitors who deserve relief under any antitrust order. He noted that as AI transforms search, the challenge will be to fit such rapidly changing tools within existing legal frameworks.
The stakes extend well beyond Google. The result of this case may set a precedent for government action against other tech giants facing their own antitrust scrutiny, including Meta, Amazon, and Apple.
Judge Mehta’s ultimate decision carries the potential to redefine not only how online search works, but also how aggressively regulators can go after powerful digital platforms as artificial intelligence shifts the boundaries of market competition, as described in the landmark antitrust case against Google.
