Washington, DC—Following opening statements and the first set of witnesses in the US v. Google remedies trial—after the Department of Justice Antitrust Division’s August 2024 win in the liability phase of the case, where a federal judge ruled that Google illegally monopolized the market for online search—the American Economic Liberties Project released the following statement.

“While Google has sought to cast its antitrust reckoning as ‘unnecessary’ in the AI era, the Justice Department affirmed that remedying Google’s illegal monopoly over online search is critical to protect fair competition in both search and generative AI,” said Laurel Kilgour, Research Manager at the American Economic Liberties Project. “Google’s opening statement showed that the company is still in denial that it lost, and despite that loss, Google continues to engage in the same conduct rebuked by the court in this case, evincing an intent to cheat its way to dominance in the next era of innovation.”

“Contrary to Google’s claim that it knows more about national security than the federal government, it would be more dangerous for Google to choke innovation and create a single point of failure,” Kilgour continued. “The United States and 49 State Attorneys General are united and determined to unfetter the market from Google’s monopoly. It was encouraging to see newly-confirmed Assistant Attorney General Gail Slater at the courtroom today and for the government’s counsel to reiterate that this is a nonpartisan case spanning multiple administrations about the future of the internet.”

Key points from Day One of the remedies proceedings in United States, et al. v. Google Inc., Case No. 1:20-cv-03010 (D.D.C.), include:

• Drawing on the DC Circuit Court’s landmark opinion in U.S. v. Microsoft, the DOJ emphasized that antitrust remedies must: 1) unfetter markets from anticompetitive conduct, 2) terminate the illegal monopoly, 3) deny the monopolist the fruits of its ill-gotten gains (here, including users, data, scale, and money), and 4) “ensure that there remain no practices likely to result in monopolization in the future.”
• The DOJ previewed testimony by market participants such as OpenAI that generative AI products and general search exist in an “intersecting Venn diagram” – although they “overlap” in some ways, they are distinct. Indeed, “GenAI relies on search.” Thus, control over search access points will impact the competitiveness of the generative AI market. Nick Turley, Head of Product for ChatGPT at OpenAI, is expected to testify on Tuesday, April 22, 2025. A co-founder of Perplexity, Dmitry Shevelenko, will testify at a later date.
• The DOJ argued that Google should be required to sell off Chrome to reduce barriers to entry; the Chrome browser is another mechanism for locking in users for Google search, serving as an access point for 35% of Google. Chrome generates billions of dollars of indirect revenue for Google. David Locala– former Global Head of Technology M&A at Citi and former Co-head of Technology M&A at Deutsche Bank– will testify that Chrome will be an attractive asset for buyers, and Dr. James Mickens will testify about the technical feasibility of divesting Chrome.
• The DOJ pointed out that whereas its remedies took into account Judge Mehta’s liability findings– by addressing Google’s unlawful contractual terms, reduced incentives for competition, anticompetitive denial of scale and data to rivals, and more– Google’s proposals were “void in essentially every single category.”
• Unlike Google, which “did not even change a single comma” between its initial remedies proposal and the final version it submitted after discovery, the DOJ did make revisions after taking discovery and “listen[ing] to market participants.” Similarly, whereas plaintiffs previewed extensive evidence supporting strong remedies in their pretrial brief, “Google’s pretrial brief… cited no evidence, zero; not a single document, not a single witness statement, only lawyer arguments.”
• During the DOJ’s opening statement, the DOJ countered Google’s anticipated national security arguments by 1) explaining that the United States government– not Google– decides what is in the best interest of national security, and 2) “what is dangerous… is not to act” to address illegal monopolies.
• Judge Mehta noted that one of the fruits of Google’s illegal search monopoly data was search data, and that a remedy should “at least try” to disgorge the ill-gotten fruits of monopoly. Google did not deny that its remedy failed to address ill-gotten data, and instead argued that the DOJ should have proven exactly what “quantum of data” was ill-gotten.
• Professor Gregory Durrett, an expert on natural language processing, confirmed what Google wrote in its own internal documents: that “search is what anchors an AI model’s output in reality.”
• Google VP of Global Partnerships Peter Fitzgerald testified that Google has agreements with partners like Samsung and Motorola for Gemini App distribution, under which Samsung and Motorola preinstall the Gemini App at certain “entry points” in return for a share of Google’s advertising and subscription revenue.
• The DOJ said that Google pays Samsung “an enormous sum in a fixed monthly payment” as part of its Gemini commercial agreements.
• The DOJ argued that Google’s agreements for Gemini distribution are “remarkably similar to the exclusionary contracts that this Court already declared to be illegal.”
• The DOJ explained that even if Google “technically” drops exclusivity provisions from contracts with distributors, that alone is not a sufficient remedy. Distributors are “concerned” that if they pre-load a non-Google product on their device,” they will “be retaliated against by Google.” The DOJ argued this is why anti-circumvention provisions to monitor Google’s compliance with remedies “are so important” here.

The slides for the DOJ’s opening argument are available here.

Learn more about Economic Liberties here.

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The American Economic Liberties Project works to ensure America’s system of commerce is structured to advance, rather than undermine, economic liberty, fair commerce, and a secure, inclusive democracy. Economic Liberties believes true economic liberty means entrepreneurs and businesses large and small succeed on the merits of their ideas and hard work; commerce empowers consumers, workers, farmers, and engineers instead of subjecting them to discrimination and abuse from financiers and monopolists; foreign trade arrangements support domestic security and democracy; and wealth is broadly distributed to support equitable political power.