Could be very good news.
ED 
A United States judge has ruled Google’s ubiquitous search engine has been illegally exploiting its dominance to squash competition and stifle innovation in a seismic decision that could shake up the internet and hobble one of the world’s best-known companies.
The highly anticipated decision issued by US District Judge Amit Mehta comes nearly a year after the start of a trial pitting the US Justice Department against Google in the country’s biggest antitrust showdown in a quarter century.
After reviewing reams of evidence that included testimony from top executives at Google, Microsoft and Apple during last year’s 10-week trial, Mehta issued his potentially market-shifting decision three months after the two sides presented their closing arguments in early May.
“After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” Mehta wrote in his 277-page ruling.
He said Google’s dominance in the search market is evidence of its monopoly.
Google “enjoys an 89.2 per cent share of the market for general search services, which increases to 94.9 per cent on mobile devices,” the ruling said.
It represents a major setback for Google and its parent Alphabet Inc, which had steadfastly argued that its popularity stemmed from consumers’ overwhelming desire to use a search engine so good at what it does that it has become synonymous with looking things up online.
Google’s search engine currently processes an estimated 8.5 billion queries per day worldwide, nearly doubling its daily volume from 12 years ago, according to a recent study released by the investment firm BOND.
Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs, said the company intends to appeal Mehta’s findings.
“This decision recognises that Google offers the best search engine but concludes that we shouldn’t be allowed to make it easily available,” Walker said.
For now, the decision vindicates antitrust regulators at the US Justice Department, which filed its lawsuit nearly four years ago under then-president Donald Trump and has been escalating its efforts to rein in Big Tech’s power during President Joe Biden’s administration.
https://www.thenewdaily.com.au/news/world/us-news/2024/08/06/google-illegal-monopoly