United States District Judge Amit Mehta has ruled that Google can continue to pay other companies, including browser makers like Mozilla, to be their default search engine.
This ruling comes as part of the remedies phase in United States v. Google LLC, following Mehta’s August 2024 finding that Google maintains an illegal monopoly in search — a decision currently under appeal.
The highly-anticipated antitrust case stops short of requiring Google to sell off its Chrome browser, or divest the Android operating system, which is something the prosecutors, the United States Department of Justice (DOJ), had sought.
Per the ruling, Google will no longer be able to strike “exclusive contracts” with companies to default or preload its products, but it may continue to pay or compensate companies to prefer its services in non-exclusive revenue sharing deals.
For Mozilla, that will come as a huge relief.
Search deal is Firefox’s saviour
Google search deal funding makes up ~85% of Mozilla’s annual income. Though Google no longer pays the Firefox maker as as much as it used to (Firefox’s marketshare isn’t quite what it used to be), the cash iremains a sizeable lifeline for the company.
Google search deal cash is ~85% of Mozilla’s annual income – a lifeline for the company
Mozilla had argued during the case that preventing Google from paying it could have major, even catastrophic consequences that might “put Firefox out of business”.
Other distributors, companies and software makers shared the same fears. Opera said the loss of payments from Google “would make it hard for [it] to continue to invest in innovative solutions that [it] provide[s] for the US audience”.
While such measures would be seen as reigning in Google’s dominance in browsers and search, it would invariably punish direct competitors to it. Shorn of money, smaller companies in the browser space would become less innovative, thus reducing competition, and ceding marketshare to Google.
Thus, “Google will not be barred from making payments or offering other consideration to distribution partners for preloading or placement of Google Search, Chrome, or its GenAI products,” Mehta wrote in his decision.
The judge noted that “cutting off payments from Google almost certainly will impose substantial — in some cases, crippling — downstream harms to distribution partners, related markets, and consumers.”
Where next?
The Google antitrust case has been one of most significant challenges to a major tech company in decades. Critics and enemies of the search giant were clamouring to see punitive restrictions placed on its business practices.
Perplexity, the AI search engine and browser maker, said it was keen to buy the Chrome browser from Google, albeit at below-market price. Their offer was labelled a ‘stunt’ by many in the tech press.
Google has issued a statement saying it ‘reviewing the decision closely’ and has ‘concerns’ on limits the Court has imposed on how it distributes Google services, and its need to share some (limited) search data with rivals.
Outsiders feel Google should be quietly pleased at the “minimal consequences” laid out. To that end, shares in Alphabet jumped by 8% after the ruling.
For Mozilla, this decision — assuming it’s not appealed — may bring a degree of assurance. Though its current search deal with Google expires at the end of 2026, it can commit confidently to funding Firefox for the foreseeable future.
The ruling should bring more certainty to downstream browsers based on Chromium. Google remains by far and away the biggest contributor to the Chromium codebase. It wasn’t clear what would happen to Chromium should Google be forced to sell Chrome.
Though Mozilla must’ve been spooked by the fear, today’s ruling should allow to sleep with the light off again — although it may be keen to find a long-term strategy that helps to reduce its dependence on Google revenue.