That search dominance is now being targeted by the US Department of Justice, which on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against Google in one of the most significant ever antitrust cases against a tech company. It's unclear what consequences the tech giant may face, but US Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen said on a call with reporters that "nothing is off the table."
But if reining in the Google search juggernaut is the goal, the big question is: Will anything on the table be enough?
The numbers are staggering: Google accounts for more than 92% of the global search engine market, according to analytics website StatCounter. Google Chrome controls 66% of the world's web browsing, while nearly three quarters of smartphones use Google's Android operating system, which uses the Google search engine by default.
While the Department of Justice has made a first move toward curtailing that power, actually doing so will require unprecedented action for which there's no clear blueprint.
Will people ever stop Googling things?
One of Google's biggest strengths is its status as the de facto search engine.
In fact, its default status is one of the central facets of the DOJ's complaint, which alleges that Google spends billions on agreements with web browsers, wireless carriers and smartphone makers to ensure that its search stays on top.
Google says its practice of paying to be the default browser is "no different" than other businesses' moves to promote their products, comparing it to a cereal brand paying supermarkets to place its boxes on certain shelves.
Kent Walker, Google's Senior Vice President of Global Affairs, slammed the DOJ lawsuit as "deeply flawed" in a blog post on Tuesday.
"People use Google because they choose to, not because they're forced to, or because they can't find alternatives," he wrote.
European regulators have been at the forefront of trying to rein in Google, imposing antitrust fines totaling more than $9 billion and forcing it to allow Android users to pick their preferred browser and search engine.
That doesn't appear to have worked — Google still had a roughly 93% share of Europe's search market as of September 2020, according to StatCounter.
"Europe has definitely been the leader in going after Google, and they've done a good job with their investigation and complaints," Sally Hubbard, director of enforcement strategy at the Open Markets Institute and author of the forthcoming book "Monopolies Suck," told CNN Business. "What they haven't done a good job with is the remedies."
The biggest problem is that people are so conditioned to use Google that most users wouldn't bother picking anything else even when given a choice.
"Given the position that Google has now, a lot of users might just continue to behave the same way and phone companies might continue to behave the same," said Charlotte Slaiman, director of competition policy at tech advocacy group Public Knowledge. "I think just getting rid of the default contracts is not going to be enough."
Why it's so hard to make a new Google
Undoing t
