Longtime Google rivals like Yelp and DuckDuckGo received a huge victory on Monday when a federal judge ruled that Google is an illegal monopoly. But their statements on the ruling expressed restraint.
That’s because the work of restoring competition has just begun, and the judge has yet to decide what that work will include.
With a lot of options on the table, Google’s competitors are pushing for changes they believe will help their businesses, which might be harder than it sounds.
“While we’re heartened by the decision, a strong remedy is critical,” Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman wrote in a blog post after the ruling, referencing the new trial phase that will kick off in September.
“We’ve passed a key milestone, but there’s still a lot of history to be written,” Kamyl Bazbaz, senior vice president of public affairs for DuckDuckGo, said in a statement.
“Google will do anything it can to get in the way of progress which is why we hope to see a robust remedies trial that can really dig into all the details, propose an array of remedies that will actually work, and set up a monitoring body to administer them.”
These statements reflect an understanding that Judge Amit Mehta’s decision on how to restore competition will be just as — if not more — important as his finding that Google violated antitrust law.
The recently concluded liability phase determined that Google violated the Sherman Act through exclusionary contracts with phone and browser makers to maintain its default search engine position.
In the remedies phase, Mehta will decide how to restore competition in general search services and search text advertising.
But a weak remedy will simply give Google a pass.
