What you need to know
- A federal judge has ruled that Google's payments to other companies to make its search engine the default option on smartphone web browsers violate US antitrust law.
- The decision came on Monday afternoon in a 286-page ruling, and gives the Department of Justice a significant victory over the tech firm.
- The case is centered around $26.3 billion Google paid in 2021, which has given the company a significant edge over competitors like Microsoft with its Bing search engine.
- Notably, the ruling has only determined that Google is guilty. It doesn't include details about remedies, so how this decision will affect Google's business is currently unclear.
