In an effort to curb the power of an illegal monopoly while rebuffing the U.S. government’s efforts to break up the company, a federal judge on Tuesday ordered a shake-up of Google’s search engine, the Associated Press reports.
U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta’s 226-page decision is likely to make waves across the technological landscape as the industry is being reshaped by breakthroughs in artificial intelligence, and companies like ChatGPT and Perplexity attempt to upend Google’s long-held position as the internet’s main gateway.
AI innovations and competition also reshaped the judge’s approach to the remedies in the nearly five-year-old antitrust case brought by the U.S. Justice Department during President Donald Trump’s first administration and carried forward by former President Joe Biden’s administration.
In an effort to rein in Google, the judge is prohibiting some of the company’s tactics to drive traffic to its search engine and other services. The ruling will also delve into some of the databases of closely guarded information about search that have given Google a seemingly insurmountable advantage.
The limitations will preclude contracts that give Google’s search engine, Gemini App, Play Store for Android and virtual assistant an exclusive position on smartphones, personal computers and other devices.
Mehta stopped short of banning the multibillion dollar deals Google has been making for years to lock in its search engines on these devices, however.
