Game of giants
Almost every „landmark“ court judgement in an antitrust case against Big Tech in the past has lacked a relevant direction in terms of consequences. This is certainly not any different in the case of the latest partial victory of the US Department of Justice against Google, which is accused of monopolistic abuse of power to maintain its supremacy in the search engine market. This is because specific measures to remedy what the judge considers to be the unlawful suppression of competition will be determined in a separate trial, and thus put on the back burner. Nevertheless, the proceedings have a unique selling point. Not only smaller search engine operators are affected, but also numerous technology heavyweights who, for various reasons, have had themselves bought by Google's parent company Alphabet, and have thus also kept their peers in check.
Closing ranks with Apple
This primarily concerns Apple, which has had a search engine deal with Google for years, that secures the iPhone manufacturer payments of around 20 billion euros a year. This is currently not only around a quarter of the annual turnover of the high-margin services division, but is also very likely a considerable driving force for the independent growth of these services, where Google searches sometimes also lead to Apple. The closing of ranks between the two giants is equivalent to a broadside against a third party. Microsoft's chances of gaining a foothold in the search engine market have been practically destroyed. The „co-operation“ between the Windows company and ChatGPT has so far done little to change this.
High costs
Other Google partners, such as web browser operators or smartphone developers and manufacturers, were by no means averse to such a cash deal after realising that search requires a constant high level of development effort, and that Google's market share is strongly supported by long-standing user habits. The problems involved in breaking up long-standing monopolies were also demonstrated by the EU proceedings concerning Google Maps. Google is no longer allowed to require smartphone manufacturers that use Android system software to install it. However, so far this has not changed the dominance of Maps. Regulating reality is a tough business.
