An antitrust challenge against Google that the Justice Department is describing as a "monumental case" is kicking off Tuesday in Washington, D.C.
The Justice Department and 11 attorneys general filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against the tech giant in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia in October 2020 to "stop Google from unlawfully maintaining monopolies through anticompetitive and exclusionary practices in the search and search advertising markets and to remedy the competitive harms."
"As one of the wealthiest companies on the planet with a market value of $1 trillion, Google is the monopoly gatekeeper to the internet for billions of users and countless advertisers worldwide," the Justice Department said at the time. "For years, Google has accounted for almost 90 percent of all search queries in the United States and has used anticompetitive tactics to maintain and extend its monopolies in search and search advertising.
"As alleged in the Complaint, Google has entered into a series of exclusionary agreements that collectively lock up the primary avenues through which users access search engines, and thus the internet, by requiring that Google be set as the preset default general search engine on billions of mobile devices and computers worldwide and, in many cases, prohibiting preinstallation of a competitor," it added.
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One of those agreements, the Justice Department said, is a long-term deal with Apple that requires Google "to be the default -- and de facto exclusive -- general search engine on Apple’s popular Safari browser and other Apple search tools."
Then-U.S. Attorney General William Barr said the litigation is "a monumental case both for the Department of Justice and for the American people."
"This case is about the future of the internet and whether Google’s search engine will ever face meaningful competition," Kenneth Dintzer, the Justice Department’s lead litigator, was quoted by The Associated Press as saying Tuesday.
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Top executives from Google and its parent Alphabet Inc. are expected to testify during the trial, but U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta likely will not issue a verdict until early next year, according to the AP.
Google did not immediately respond Tuesday to a request for comment from FOX Business.
The company has argued that its competitive advantage comes from designing and offering a product that billions of people choose to use daily, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The Justice Department also filed a lawsuit against Google earlier this year alleging the company has dominance over the online ad space.
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"Google’s anticompetitive behavior has raised barriers to entry to artificially high levels, forced key competitors to abandon the market for ad tech tools, dissuaded potential competitors from joining the market, and left Google’s few remaining competitors marginalized and unfairly disadvantaged," the Justice Department and eight states alleged in January.
FOX Business' Anders Hagstrom contributed to this report.
