Witness testimony concludes in landmark Google search monopoly trial

WASHINGTON (CN) — A federal judge heard the final day of testimony Friday in the landmark antitrust trial over Google’s internet search monopoly, as Google and the Justice Department presented their final witnesses before closing arguments later this month.

U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta, who concluded Google operated a monopoly after a nine-week liability phase in 2023, will determine how best to restore competition to the internet search and search ads markets, with a ruling expected in August. 

The Barack Obama appointee scheduled closing arguments to begin on May 29.

The Justice Department began its rebuttal in the remedy phase of the trial — Google rested its case on Thursday — with digital marketing expert Kinshuk Jerath testifying about the “advertiser perspective” in regard to the government’s proposed search ad market remedies. 

Search advertising is the second prong of Google’s internet search monopoly, which the government recommended could be addressed by providing advertisers real-time information on any advertising metric necessary to evaluate an ad’s performance. 

Jerath took the stand to rebut testimony by one of Google’s experts, Mark Israel, who said that the remedy would lead to costly negotiations between Google and advertisers. 

Jerath disagreed, testifying that the advertising industry generally agrees on key metrics and the remedy would likely not be costly, describing the remedy as “future proof.”

The Justice Department also suggested Mehta could order Google to release data from its advertising markets by granting competitors access to data reports — including information from Google Analytics, Ads Data Hub, Google Ads Data Manager, BigQuery, or Store sales and visitor measurement products — to make rivals’ search ad markets competitive. 

On cross examination, Jerath testified that such a remedy would go beyond general search text advertising, the relevant market in the case, and thus could be too expansive for Mehta to impose as a remedy. 

Jerath also conceded that, by providing advertisers real-time metric information, there would be no limit to what the advertisers could demand from Google and could include user GPS coordinates, email addresses and device IDs. 

He clarified that such requests would likely be denied, but noted that without a mechanism in place he could only speculate. 

Much of the two-week evidentiary hearings have centered on the Justice Department’s high-profile remedies for Google’s internet search monopoly, particularly a Chrome divestiture and its date-sharing proposals. 

The Justice Department has urged Mehta to break up Google by selling off its Chrome browser, and potentially Android, while barring multibillion-dollar deals for default status on Safari and Mozilla browsers. Further, the government recommended data-sharing remedies to help competitors catch up to Google’s quality. 

Google has pushed Mehta to impose a narrow remedy, such as opening up its default deals to bidding from other search engines on a yearly basis rather than barring the deals entirely, and leave Chrome and Android with the company. 

Google’s witnesses have decried each as anticompetitive themselves and warned they would harm consumers and put their data at risk. 

A secondary issue that was not present during the liability phase in 2023 and 2024 has been generative artificial intelligence. The technology has progressed significantly since Mehta heard closing arguments last in May 2024 and issued his initial ruling in August 2024. 

The Justice Department has expressed concern that Google could use its Gemini AI product to circumvent any remedies and maintain its dominance over search. 

Apple’s Senior Vice President of Services Eddy Cue testified Wednesday that AI had the potential to completely reshape the tech industry.

“You may not need an iPhone 10 years from now,” Cue said.

Top executives from AI companies Open AI and Perplexity have also taken the stand throughout the remedy phase, describing their companies’ significant growth recently and expressing interest in Chrome if Mehta orders its divestiture. 

Google has indicated it will appeal Mehta’s ultimate decision to the D.C. Circuit — where the last landmark antitrust effort in U.S. v. Microsoft floundered and resulted in a settlement — and likely to the U.S. Supreme Court. 

As he adjourned on Friday, Mehta thanked the attorneys from either side for their extensive work on the case and their arguments.

“Once in a career do you get a case of this nature, and lawyers of this nature,” Mehta said. 

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