It seems that Google's dominance and, in some cases, its complete monopoly, over a number of digital services like internet browsing, search, and online advertising is finally facing the heat in the US. Its monopolistic practices are under serious antitrust legal scrutiny.
In the last one year, Google has lost two major antitrust cases in the US—one concerning its dominance in online advertising, which it lost in April 2025, and the other regarding its monopoly in internet search, which it lost last year.
Apart from the antitrust cases against Meta (owner of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp), both antitrust cases against Google are crucial not only for checking the continuing market dominance of Google and other big tech companies but also for shaping the future of the ongoing battle to rein in the extraordinary power and influence of big tech—whether by breaking them up, forcing them to sell a part of the company, or by strictly regulating them.
That Google is taking the matter seriously can be understood in its hiring of Donald Verrilli Jr, the top lawyer for the US government during Barack Obama's presidency, to lead its appeal in court. In another recent development, Google's parent company Alphabet Inc has formally agreed to invest $500 million over the next decade to upgrade its global compliance framework, in compliance with a proposed settlement in one of the lawsuits, as per media reports.