Over the last two years, Google has been found liable for unlawfully maintaining monopolies in two separate cases brought by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) involving online search and advertising technology. The company also agreed to pay $700 million to settle claims related to its Play Store, and faces a private lawsuit from rival app store, Aptoide.
The developments raise broader questions: Do they represent temporary legal challenges for Google (and its parent, Alphabet), or signal increased scrutiny of business practices across the technology industry?
Olivier Sylvain is a professor of Law at Fordham University who teaches Legislation & Regulation, Administrative Law, Information Law, U.S. Data Protection Law and Privacy, and information technology-related courses. He said he’s noticed the tide may be turning in courtrooms against the sector’s big players.
“The liability findings are not terribly surprising given how total Google’s domination has been in adtech, in my opinion,” said Sylvain, who served as senior advisor to the chair of the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) from 2021 to 2023 and is the author of "Reclaiming the Internet: How Big Tech Took Control—and How We Can Take It Back."
“What’s going to be important is how deep does the court cut, given the liability. You’ve got to think that there’s an opportunity here to make sure other potential players in adtech can rise to the surface. This is what these structural arguments are about.”
- Google lost major DOJ antitrust cases tied to search and ad technology, adding pressure on Big Tech business practices across the industry.
- The real fight is over remedies. Courts could force changes to app stores, search deals, data sharing and digital advertising operations.
- Google’s appeal may influence future cases involving Apple and Meta, with broader impact on competition rules and platform access.
- Companies that rely on dominant platforms should monitor these rulings now as they could reshape distribution, advertising costs and market access.
The Scorecard
Alphabet and Google’s recent and ongoing antitrust cases illustrate the breadth of the company’s litigation exposure to the DOJ and private competitors.
- State of Utah et al. v. Google LLC et al: Best known as the “Play Store litigation,” the $700 million resolution arose from a separate case brought by all 50 states, D.C., Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands alleging Google used anticompetitive restrictions in the Play Store; $630 million was allocated for consumer compensation and $70 million to a fund controlled by the states. Separately, Epic won a jury verdict in 2023, and the Ninth Circuit in 2025 affirmed the verdict and permanent injunction requiring significant changes to Google Play; subsequent proceedings have included findings concerning Google’s compliance with the injunction, while Google and Epic ultimately reached a settlement that reshaped the Android app-store rules.
- DOJ v. Google: In the “search monopoly case,” Judge Amit Mehta found in August 2024 that Google had unlawfully monopolized the general search and search-text-advertising markets under Section 2 of the federal Sherman Act. After a remedies trial in Spring 2025, the court’s September 2025 order prohibited certain exclusive distribution agreements, required Google to share specified search data with qualified competitors and required it to offer search-results and text-ad syndication; notably, the court rejected the DOJ’s proposed breakup of Google or divestiture of Chrome. Google has appealed the liability and remedies rulings to the D.C. Circuit, while implementation of the remedies continues.
- DOJ v. Google: In the “adtech case” Judge Leonie Brinkema found in April 2025 that Google unlawfully maintained monopolies in the publisher ad-server and ad-exchange markets, although she rejected the government’s claim concerning the advertiser ad network. The remedies trial concluded in November 2025, and as of August 2026, the court still has not issued its remedies decision; structural separation remains genuinely on the table because the DOJ is seeking divestiture of Google’s AdX exchange, with divestiture of its DoubleClick for Publishers (DFP) ad server as a potential backstop, while Google advocates behavioral remedies instead.
- Aptoide, S.A. v. Google LLC et al: In April 2026, Portuguese alternative app store Aptoide filed a private antitrust suit against Google in federal court in San Francisco, alleging that Google continues to exercise an anticompetitive “chokehold” over Android app distribution and billing despite the Epic litigation and the $700 million settlement. Aptoide alleges, among other things, that Google uses its control of the Android ecosystem to disadvantage rival app stores and seeks injunctive relief and treble damages. This may pose an important test of whether Google’s post-Epic changes have actually opened the Android “gateway” to meaningful competition.
Todd A. Seaver, a partner in the San Francisco office of Berman Tabacco and co-leader of its Antitrust group, noted how the cases have essentially revived the importance of Section 2 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, which makes it illegal for any person or company to monopolize, attempt to monopolize, or conspire to monopolize trade or commerce.
“Section 2 was a dead letter for much of my career because the power of markets could sort out these matters,” said Seaver, who has been recognized in The Best Lawyers in America® for Antitrust Litigation and Mass Tort Litigation / Class Action– Plaintiffs. The theories guiding antitrust laws are evolving, he added, and now that judges are overseeing nine- and 10-figure cases, “Section 2 isn’t running around now, but it has a pulse.”
What Makes the Remedies Fight the Real Story
The precedent will not be established solely from liability findings, but more from the structural remedies that follow.
“The remedy phase answers a far more consequential question: ‘What happens now?’ ” said Kevin B. Frankel, a partner at Benesch Friedlander Coplan & Aronoff LLP in California. “History teaches that weak remedies can leave dominant positions largely intact even after formal legal losses. Microsoft’s 2001 consent decree [as a result of the settlement in U.S. v. Microsoft Corporation], for example, imposed behavioral constraints but preserved the company’s core business structure. That is why sophisticated observers focus less on the verdict and more on what courts actually order as relief.”
A liability ruling against Google, however, goes only so far. The Microsoft decision was appealed, and although the company was found to have illegally maintained a monopoly, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit overturned the order to break up the company and remanded the case for further proceedings. Perhaps taking a cue from that landmark decision, Google fought for behavioral remedies and against structural ones.
“Courts face a genuine tension here,” Frankel noted. “On one side, they want to avoid remedies that destroy real efficiencies. On the other, they need to ensure that relief actually restores competitive conditions. Integration can deliver genuine benefits—faster product development, better security, seamless user experiences. But integration can also serve as a mechanism for excluding rivals and entrenching dominance. The critical question is whether the efficiencies the defendant claims are achievable only through the challenged structure, or whether they could be preserved through alternative arrangements.”
Frankel said that the DOJ’s “adtech” suit against Google remedies decision as the next real test of whether that reluctance holds and that the result will have implications for the practice of antitrust law.
Frankel said, “Once a company has been found to have unlawfully maintained monopoly power, the burden ought to shift: the defendant should have to demonstrate why less intrusive remedies would be inadequate.”
The Appeal That Could Undo, or Cement, the Digital Landscape
Google’s appeal in the “search” case poses two challenges: the district court’s liability determination that Google unlawfully maintained monopolies in general search; and search-text advertising and the remedies order imposing restrictions on exclusive distribution agreements, along with data-sharing and search-syndication requirements.
“We tell students that the legal doctrine says that the appellate judges are not in the business of reviewing facts, they’re in the business of determining whether the lower court got the law right,” Sylvain said. “Any serious lawyer knows that facts matter, no matter the stage [of a case]. I think when you’ve got near 90% market share of ad-selling technology, that’s a powerful fact.”
The D.C. Circuit’s ruling could have implications that extend beyond Google. A reversal could weaken the legal foundation and momentum behind the federal government’s broader technology antitrust campaign, while an affirmance would strengthen regulators’ hand in pursuing monopolization claims against other dominant platforms, including Apple and Meta.
“The raw fact of Google’s near-total domination is all you really need to know,” Sylvain said. “What will matter [is] whether this remedy will [impact] the benefit of consumers or not, whatever the remedy may be. This could mean that consumers have an inferior experience online or even have to pay. We live in a world where consumers assume that they are not paying anything for a free service, although, of course, they are paying with their data.”
The Bigger Pattern: Apple, Meta, and What Comes Next
Google’s setbacks alone will not establish a uniform judicial turn against Big Tech. The broader enforcement docket instead reflects the intensely fact-dependent nature of modern monopolization cases. In United States of America et al. v. Apple Inc., the DOJ’s case against Apple remains active after a federal judge in New Jersey denied Apple’s motion to dismiss in June 2025. The government alleges that Apple unlawfully maintained monopoly power in U.S. smartphone and performance-smartphone markets through restrictions that make it harder for users and developers to leave the iPhone ecosystem. The merits, however, have yet to be resolved.
Federal Trade Commission v. Meta Platforms, Inc. supplies the counterpoint. In November 2025, Chief Judge James Boasberg ruled for Meta after trial in the FTC’s challenge to its acquisitions of Instagram and WhatsApp. The court concluded that the FTC had not proved Meta currently possessed monopoly power in personal social networking, principally because its proposed market excluded meaningful substitutes, including TikTok and YouTube. The FTC appealed, maintaining that Meta bought emerging competitive threats rather than prevailing through ordinary competition.
The emerging pattern is not that dominant technology companies are destined to lose, but that market definition, evidence of present competitive constraints, and the specific conduct at issue remain dispositive. Google’s losses may embolden enforcers, but Meta’s defiance illustrates that agency ambition cannot substitute for proof.
“We want consumers to be better off, certainly, but [these actions] are also about ensuring there’s a competitive market, which in the long run will redound to the benefit of consumers,” Sylvain said. “That’s the theory, at least.”
Implications for Companies That Depend on Platforms
Businesses whose models depend on access to dominant platforms should closely follow the Google and Meta litigation and the design of any resulting remedies.
Frankel noted four categories of potential remedies that general counsel will benefit from watching.
“First, changes to defaults and distribution: if Google must alter how it secures search placement, rivals could gain access to distribution channels that were previously locked up,” he said. “Second, interoperability mandates: requirements to open APIs or share data could lower barriers to competitive entry.
“Third, anti-self-preferencing rules: prohibitions on favoring a platform’s own services could crack open advertising and app-store markets. Fourth, structural separation: divesting adtech assets would reshape digital advertising at its foundation.”
Seaver also noted that digital businesses can mobilize more quickly than nearly all traditional ones because they often need relatively little capital beyond an internet connection and computing resources. A car manufacturer, by contrast, may require years of development and millions of dollars in capital to build a physical product.
“The tech sector moves too fast and antitrust litigation takes years, so by the time it’s resolved, the market has changed and moved on,” he said. As a result, regulatory governance is often steps behind.
Strategies and Searching for Answers
Whether these cases signal a broader shift in antitrust enforcement or simply isolated setbacks for Big Tech will remain uncertain until the appeals and remaining remedies proceedings conclude.
“It’s also a signal to all market actors that there’s only so far you can go in an acquisition strategy or in imposing exclusive terms on potential advertisers and publishers,” Sylvain noted. “In the near term, it’s about fixing the monopoly or redressing the monopoly that Google has had.”
The enforcement playbook is still being written and will likely combine new theories for challenging digital platform conduct with renewed interest in structural remedies.
This playbook is likely to shape antitrust litigation and regulatory policy long after these individual cases are decided, despite the billions of dollars at stake. Until then, Frankel said affected enterprises should strategize for various outcomes.
“Platform-dependent businesses should brace for a period of uncertainty as remedies are designed and implemented, stay flexible in their platform relationships, and—where their interests are directly at stake—participate in remedy proceedings,” Frankel said. “Headline remedies often look quite different once they are actually put into practice.”
