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Liu Yiran, our special correspondent in the United States; Zhen Xiang, our special correspondent

According to the Financial Times, on the 5th local time, the federal court in Washington, DC, issued a 286-page verdict, finding that Google had implemented a monopoly in the search engine field and violated US antitrust laws. In 2020, the US Department of Justice and state governments launched an antitrust lawsuit against Google. The US Department of Justice believes that Google has reached an exclusive agreement with browser developers, device manufacturers, etc., making Google the default search engine. In 2021 alone, Google paid more than $26 billion to its partners. After the verdict was released, US Attorney General Garland called it a "historic victory for the American people" and declared: "No matter how big or how influential, no company is above the law." Shares of Google's parent company Alphabet fell more than 4% on Monday. Kent Walker, president of Google's global affairs, issued a statement saying that Google plans to appeal the above verdict.

It is worth noting that for some time, US regulators have launched a series of antitrust lawsuits against technology giants. In addition to the above cases, the US Department of Justice also accused Google of monopolizing the digital advertising market in another lawsuit. In addition, the US Department of Justice also sued Apple for monopolizing the digital advertising market, and the US Federal Trade Commission launched antitrust lawsuits against Amazon and Meta. The Financial Times said that the ruling in the Google search antitrust case was the biggest victory achieved by the US antitrust department against technology giants in decades.

According to reports, the Google search antitrust lawsuit will enter the second phase. On the one hand, the court will decide how to punish Google, including how to make it compensate for "illegal monopoly behavior"; on the other hand, Google will appeal. CNN believes that after Google appeals, the lawsuit will continue, and it may take several months or even years to settle. CNN predicts that this lawsuit may cause Google to change its business model of relying on money to become the default search engine. Users may see prompts to choose which search engine to use as the default option in the future. In addition, the possibility of fines on Google is not ruled out. It is worth mentioning that US regulatory officials have not ruled out the possibility of forcing Google to split.

Diana Moss, vice president of the American Progressive Policy Institute, said that the court's ruling on Monday shows that "monopolists entering into exclusive contracts" are illegal. The symbolic significance of this ruling is comparable to the U.S. court's forced breakup of AT&T and Standard Oil, and can also be compared to the earlier U.S. court's ruling that Microsoft's operating system bundling of web browsers violated antitrust laws.

Some industry insiders also said that due to its monopoly in the search field, Google can optimize its artificial intelligence engine based on continuous user search data training, which allows it to continue to have a huge advantage in the current hot artificial intelligence field. Microsoft CEO Nadella expressed this view at a US congressional hearing.

Analysts believe that Google Search's loss of its default search engine status will have a serious impact on Google's core products at a critical time in the development of artificial intelligence. Some analysts also believe that the antitrust lawsuit against Google Search may not benefit consumers, and the real beneficiaries are actually Google's competitors such as Microsoft. ▲