Google sidestepped the most dramatic outcome in its landmark antitrust fight, but a federal judge has ordered sweeping behavioral remedies that pry open the default search pipeline and curb how the company ties its services together. The ruling blocks exclusive distribution deals and compels limited data-sharing designed to give rivals a real shot at distribution and relevance—without dismantling Google’s core search business.
What the order actually does
U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta outlined rules that prohibit Google from entering or maintaining exclusive arrangements that tether Search, Chrome, Google Assistant, or Gemini to other apps or revenue-sharing deals. In practice, that means no conditioning Play Store licensing on the preinstallation of certain apps, and no paying partners to keep Google services as the only defaults.
Google must also provide “qualified competitors” with access to defined portions of its search index and user-interaction signals under privacy-guarded terms. In parallel, the company is required to offer search and search-ads syndication at standard rates so rivals can deliver competitive results while building their own technology stacks.
The court is pushing the parties to finalize a compliant judgment soon. A technical committee will monitor compliance, and the order is set to run for six years once it takes effect. It’s a classic conduct-based remedy: no structural breakup, but tight constraints on how Google can leverage its scale.
End of the default lock-ups
The Justice Department built much of its case around default search placements on browsers and smartphones, arguing that most users rarely switch—making default status “extremely valuable real estate.” Court records showed Google spent more than $26 billion in one recent year to secure default slots across devices and browsers. Roughly $18 billion of that went to one partner, with a revenue share around 36% tied to traffic from a major browser’s default search bar. In another recent year, payments to that partner topped $20 billion, underscoring how central these deals have been to maintaining share.
Those arrangements won’t disappear entirely, but they can no longer be exclusive. That change alone could reset the starting line for rivals like Microsoft’s Bing, privacy-focused players such as DuckDuckGo, and newer AI-forward entrants looking to surface as readily as Google when a user unboxes a phone or opens a browser.
Data-sharing without handing over the crown jewels
The most sensitive fight centered on data access. The DOJ sought broad sharing of index data, click signals, synthetic queries, and even elements that touched on ranking systems. Google pushed back hard, with CEO Sundar Pichai warning in court that sweeping data mandates would amount to a “de facto divestiture” of Search.
Judge Mehta landed on a narrower middle ground. The order requires Google to share defined slices of index and interaction data with vetted competitors and to make syndication available on standard terms. Notably, he invoked Europe’s Digital Markets Act as a reference point—where Google must share certain click and query data—but stopped short of imposing open-ended, DMA-style obligations. In other words, the remedy aims to restore contestability without exposing Google’s source code or the full mechanics of its ranking systems.
Implications for rivals and users
Distribution is destiny in consumer search. If device makers present genuine choice screens and partners aren’t paid to lock out alternatives, rivals gain the runway to learn from more queries, improve relevance, and compete on quality. Access to standardized syndication and slices of index data lowers the cost of entry for challengers, which could translate into faster innovation around vertical search, privacy features, and AI-assisted answers.
For users, the near-term changes may look subtle—more visible choice prompts, a few different defaults on new devices, and perhaps improved results from non-Google options. Over time, if competitors can compound incremental gains in relevance and ad yield, the result could be better search options, stronger privacy guarantees, and potentially lower ad prices for advertisers as platforms vie for budgets.
Still, Google remains enormously advantaged. According to long-running market-share estimates from firms such as StatCounter and Similarweb, Google has held roughly 90% of traditional web search for years. Even with exclusive deals off the table, scale effects in data, advertiser demand, and product integration are formidable moats.
Why this isn’t a breakup—and what comes next
The DOJ initially floated stronger medicine, including divesting Chrome and unwinding elements of Android distribution. The court opted instead for targeted conduct rules, likely reflecting concerns about feasibility, consumer disruption, and the risk of over-correcting in a fast-moving AI race.
Next, Google and the DOJ must translate the opinion into a detailed final judgment. A court-appointed technical committee will oversee compliance for six years, and enforcement could escalate if Google is found to be skirting the spirit of the order.
The ripple effects extend beyond search. In a separate case, a federal judge previously found that Google illegally monopolized ad-tech markets, with a remedies phase on the horizon. Former FTC chair William Kovacic has noted the unusual situation of two parallel remedy tracks targeting the same dominant firm—each influencing the other as courts calibrate how far to go in reshaping a platform’s business model.
Appeals are all but certain, and the endgame could reach the Supreme Court. For now, the message is clear: the court won’t dismantle Google, but it will pry open the gates that kept rivals out of the most valuable entry points in consumer search.
