In October 2020, The US Department of Justice, joined by multiple US states, commenced US and (Plaintiff States) v Google LLC, which alleged that Google maintained monopolies in general search services on the Internet, search advertising, and general search text advertising; by forcing adoption of Google’s tools, acquiring competitors, distorting auction competition and by auction manipulation.
In August 2024, the US District Court for the District of Columbia found Google to be a monopolist in search and advertising. Consumers encounter this situation by way of default search engine agreements that Google has struck with device manufacturers such as Apple and others, by the promoted placement of ads and content with search results; and by setting Chrome as the default browser on devices using the Android operating system.
Quoting from the Court’s opinion (Document 1033), “For more than a decade, Google unlawfully froze the general search and general search text advertising ecosystem through anticompetitive exclusive distribution agreements that maintained two monopolies. Google paid carriers, device manufacturers, and independent browsers billions to default their search access points to Google Search, to preinstall and prominently display Google’s search access points, and to exclude competitors. Competition in both markets suffered substantially…”
Remedies recommended
In April 2025, citing the 2000 outcome of US vs Microsoft as precedent, which found that Microsoft abused its market power by requiring that its software licensees bundle Microsoft Internet Explorer (for example, by pre-installing it on computers running Windows); as well as citing other precedents, the Court proposed a series of remedies against Google.
Remedies recommended in Document 1218, are:
- Contractual changes to prohibit Google from locking up the most efficient forms of distribution on third-party devices and applications.
- Requiring Google to divest Chrome and reserve the right for the Court to require further structural relief, including the divestiture of Android … if certain conditions are triggered.
- Requiring Google to share certain search and ads data, and syndicate some search and ads products (to reduce) Google’s … scale advantage and lower barriers to entry.
- Restore advertisers’ transparency into and control over their ad spend to lower their switching costs.
- Require Google to fund a nationwide advertising and education program designed to inform user choices
- (Implement) a Compliance Monitor and Technical Committee (as was done in Microsoft) to ensure the proper administration of the Court’s final judgment, (and to safeguard) against circumvention and retaliation.
The goals of the Google remedies include ‘unfetter(ing) markets … from anticompetitive conduct, ‘terminat(ing) the illegal monopoly, deny(ing) the defendant the fruits of its..violation(s), and ensur(ing) that there remain no practices likely to result in monopolization in the future.’
Anti-trust violation
Coinciding with the aforementioned case, a second case in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia found Google’s advertising business to be in violation of the Sherman Act, by monopolizing open-web digital advertising markets.
Now, on to AI
In May 2025, reports emerged that an internal presentation, made at Google and presented into evidence in this same Google Search case, adds another dimension: does Google value market dominance above copyright?
In 2023, Google introduced a feature called Google-Extended, that was said to allow publishers to exclude their content from Google’s conversational AI tool, and from Google’s machine learning platforms; branded Bard and Vertex AI at that time, respectively. Bard is now called Gemini.
A presentation by a Google product manager noted that Google made a choice internally not to allow publishers to choose whether or not their content could be used to build ‘AI Overviews’ as part of the ‘Search Generative Experience’ that appears at the head of Google Search results; even if the publisher has opted out of it – so that content could still be used to train Google’s AI models.
Google has taken the position externally that it is “committed to engaging with the web and AI communities to explore additional machine-readable approaches to choice and control for web publishers.”
Risk for errors
Imperfect AI algorithms famously result in errors, which the AI industry refers to as ‘hallucinations.’ AI-fabricated pictures of famous figures with deformities. Journalists and authors have cited Open AI and others for plagiarism. AI was used to recommend a list of books that did not exist, for summer reading.
As students embrace AI to help them with their homework, educators are embracing AI to review that work; spawning companies that offer plagiarism detection services. In May, the New York Times reported an incident in which a student received a failing grade after a detection service flagged the work for plagiarism: “(by) outsourcing the composition of her paper … to an AI chatbot.” After presenting rigorious evidence the failing grade was rescinded.
It’s a difficult choice for publishers: if excerpts or links to their works do not appear in a search result, the publisher gets little or no exposure for its content. Conversely, publishers that have declined having their content used for AI overviews but whose contents appear there anyway, have involuntarily been violated.
In any case, will the content be used accurately and legally?
Another copyright risk
In March, it emerged that an experimental version of Google’s Gemini 2.0 Flash AI model had been discovered being used to remove watermarks from copyrighted images. If not corrected before its general availability, this would be a violation of the Digital MIllennium Copyright Act.
Google later responded: “Using Google’s generative AI tools to engage in copyright infringement is a violation of our terms of service. As with all experimental releases, we’re monitoring closely and listening for developer feedback.”
Why it matters
Since the Search judgment and the Court’s recommended remedies are so recent, it is unknown as to whether or how a divestiture of Chrome or Android – or any of the other recommended remedies – will come to pass. Any outcome other than ‘no changes’ is likely to be highly disruptive to both Google’s OEM licensees and to Google’s advertising business.
And now, there’s a new and more fundamental question: Can AI platform developers force the originators of creative works – be they literary, journalistic, or in the form of software – to cede the control of their use to train AI platforms? Should copyright law be selectively enforced, based on an AI platform developer’s market power?
A US Court has already ruled that the use of copyrighted works to train AI platforms does not represent Fair Use of that data.
Further reading
How Google forced publishers to accept AI scraping as price of appearing in search. Article. May 12, 2025. by Charlotte Tobitt. Press Gazette (UK)
Search (incl SGE) Publisher Controls. Updated April 12, 2024. Presentation. Google product management. United States of America et al, Plaintiffs and State of Colorado et al, Plaintiffs v Google LLC, Defendant. Case 1:20-cv03010. August 5, 2024. US District Court for the District of Columbia.
A new headache for honest students: Proving they didn’t use AI. Article. May 17, 2025. by Callie Holtermann. The New York Times
Department of Justice prevails in landmark antitrust case against Google. Press release. April 17, 2025. Office of Public Affairs. US Department of Justice
People are using Google’s new AI model to remove watermarks from images. Article. March 17, 2025. by Kyle Wiggers. TechCrunch.
Memorandum Opinion. Document 1033. United States of America et al, Plaintiffs and State of Colorado et al, Plaintiffs v Google LLC, Defendant. Case 1:20-cv03010. August 5, 2024. US District Court for the District of Columbia.
Plaintiffs’ Remedies Pre-trial Brief. Document 1218. United States of America et al, Plaintiffs and State of Colorado et al, Plaintiffs v Google LLC, Defendant. Case 1:20-cv03010. August 5, 2024. US District Court for the District of Columbia.
Court Documents. United States of America et al, Plaintiffs and State of Colorado et al, Plaintiffs v Google LLC, Defendant. Case 1:20-cv03010. August 5, 2024. US District Court for the District of Columbia.
Complaint. Document 1. United States of America et al, Plaintiffs and (multiple US states), Plaintiffs v Google LLC, Defendant. Case 1:20-cv03010. August 5, 2024. US District Court for the District of Columbia.
