A ruling that took 20 years to arrive

In August 2024, the Department of Justice won the first significant antitrust case against a dominant US technology company in a generation. Judge Amit Mehta’s ruling in United States v. Google found that Google had monopolized the general internet search market and the search advertising market, in violation of Section 2 of the Sherman Act.

The ruling described, in detail, a long-running pattern. Google paid Apple, Samsung, Mozilla, and other distributors billions of dollars annually to be the default search engine on their devices and browsers. The default-search payments crowded out competitors that could not match Google’s pricing. The dominance enabled by these payments produced search advertising rents that, in turn, funded the next round of default payments. The cycle was self-reinforcing and largely impervious to competitive entry.

The ruling addressed liability. The remedies fight followed — and on the remedies, the enforcers largely lost.

What conduct remedies and structural remedies actually mean

Antitrust remedies fall into two general categories with very different track records.

Conduct remedies are behavioral commitments by the dominant firm — promises not to engage in specific anticompetitive conduct, with court oversight. The defendant continues to operate as a single entity but agrees to refrain from particular practices.

The track record of conduct remedies in tech antitrust has been poor. The 1990s Microsoft consent decree is the standard reference. Microsoft agreed to specific behavioral constraints; the constraints proved difficult to define precisely, difficult to enforce, and easy for Microsoft to work around through technical and product design choices. Conduct remedies require ongoing supervision that courts and enforcers struggle to sustain over multi-year horizons.

Structural remedies require divestiture of specific lines of business or assets. The defendant is forced to spin off a portion of its operations as a separate company. Once executed, structural remedies don’t require ongoing supervision — the divested entity is, by definition, separate.

Structural remedies have a stronger track record where they have been used. The 1982 AT&T breakup, while imperfect, produced a competitive long-distance market that benefited consumers for decades. The 1911 Standard Oil breakup, similarly, produced a competitive landscape that enabled subsequent industrial development.

What the DOJ asked for

The DOJ entered the remedies phase seeking structural remedies. The package it proposed included some combination of:

Chrome browser divestiture. Chrome is the dominant US web browser. As Google’s primary default-search distribution channel, separating Chrome from Google would have removed the most consequential lever Google has used to perpetuate search dominance.

Android-related restrictions. Android is the dominant US mobile operating system (other than Apple’s iOS). The DOJ sought structural relief or, failing that, contingent divestiture if behavioral remedies proved insufficient.

Default-payment prohibition. A strict prohibition on Google paying for default search placement on third-party platforms (Apple, Samsung, Mozilla, etc.). This is a conduct remedy in form but with structural effects.

Data-sharing requirement. Requiring Google to share certain search-related data (the search index, user-interaction data) with competitors at regulated rates. The argument: Google’s data advantage is itself a barrier to competition; sharing reduces it.

Choice screens and syndication. Mandatory screens prompting users to pick a default search engine, and an obligation to syndicate search and search-ad services to rivals.

What the court actually ordered

Judge Mehta issued his remedies ruling on September 2, 2025, and entered a final judgment on December 5, 2025. The outcome was a behavioral remedy, not a structural one.

No Chrome divestiture. The court declined to order Google to sell Chrome. It declined to order any divestiture of Android. The most consequential structural remedies the DOJ sought were rejected. Google’s share price rose sharply on the news; markets read the ruling as a win for the company.

No ban on default payments. Crucially, the court did not bar Google from paying device makers and browsers for default placement. Google can continue to pay Apple, Samsung, Mozilla, and others — the very payments the liability ruling identified as the engine of the monopoly. What the court prohibited was exclusivity: Google can no longer enter contracts that make its search, Chrome, Assistant, or Gemini products the exclusive default, and any such distribution agreement must be terminable within one year.

A “shall not condition” rule. Google cannot make access, payments, or favorable terms for one product contingent on a partner taking another — a constraint aimed at tying behavior.

Data sharing — but limited. Google must share certain search-index and user-interaction data with qualified competitors. It is not required to share advertising data. A technical committee will oversee compliance, and the framework runs for six years. The judgment also extends to Gemini and successor generative-AI products, so that Google cannot use search dominance to box out AI-search challengers.

The result tracks the historical pattern this brief describes. The DOJ won liability and then secured a conduct remedy — the category with the weaker enforcement record — rather than the structural relief that has historically produced durable competition.

The appeal

Neither side accepted the judgment. On February 3, 2026, the DOJ — joined by 38 state attorneys general — filed a cross-appeal, arguing the remedies were too weak and pressing again for Chrome divestiture, choice screens, and tighter limits on Google embedding AI search across its ecosystem. Google filed its own appeal challenging the six-year framework as overbroad. The case now goes to the D.C. Circuit, with argument expected in late 2026 or early 2027 and a decision unlikely before mid-2027. The practical effect of the antitrust win remains, in other words, unsettled.

What the legal architecture allows

Several legal questions affect what remedies the court can impose:

Tailoring requirement. Antitrust remedies must be tailored to the harm. The remedy cannot, in legal theory, be unrelated to the conduct found unlawful. The DOJ’s case here is straightforward: default-payment dominance produced search dominance, so divestitures or restrictions targeting default-payment infrastructure are appropriate.

Burden of proof. The DOJ bears the burden of demonstrating that proposed remedies are appropriate. The “ineffectiveness of conduct remedies” argument has historical support but is not automatic.

Future commerce. The remedy must address future competitive harm, not just past harm. The court’s focus is on what the market will look like after the remedy.

Implementation. Structural remedies in tech industries pose implementation questions courts have rarely confronted at this scale. Chrome’s separation, in particular, raises operational questions (engineering, infrastructure, product roadmap) that the court will need to address.

The other major cases

The Google search case is the most advanced of several major platform antitrust cases:

DOJ v. Google (AdTech). A separate case addressing Google’s dominance in advertising-technology markets. Reached trial in 2024; ruling pending.

FTC v. Meta. Addressed Meta’s acquisitions of Instagram (2012) and WhatsApp (2014); the FTC sought to unwind both. The FTC lost. On November 18, 2025, after a six-week bench trial, Judge James Boasberg ruled for Meta, finding the agency had failed to prove Meta currently holds monopoly power in personal social networking. The court held that Meta now competes with TikTok and YouTube and that the FTC’s market definition — Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and MeWe — was too narrow. There will be no breakup of Instagram or WhatsApp absent a successful appeal. The loss, paired with the limited Google remedy, materially weakens the recent narrative that platform antitrust enforcement had turned decisively in enforcers’ favor.

DOJ v. Apple. Filed in 2024, addresses Apple’s iOS practices including App Store rules, restrictions on cross-platform messaging, and other conduct.

FTC v. Amazon. Filed in 2023, addresses Amazon’s marketplace practices including seller treatment and Buy Box manipulation.

State AG cases. Several state attorney general antitrust cases, often in coordination with federal cases, are at various stages.

The cumulative effect — should the cases produce structural remedies — would be the most significant restructuring of US technology industries since the 1980s AT&T breakup.

What the legislative complement looks like

The American Innovation and Choice Online Act and similar bills would prohibit specific anticompetitive practices by dominant platforms — self-preferencing, anti-steering, certain forms of discrimination — without requiring antitrust litigation in each instance. The legislation is reintroduced in multiple sessions; it has not been enacted.

The political coalition for AICOA-style legislation has been bipartisan in principle but has faced industry pressure that has prevented advancement. The combined enforcement-and-legislative agenda represents the most concerted antitrust push of the post-1980s period.

What’s at risk

Several scenarios could weaken or reverse the antitrust trajectory — and two of them have already materialized:

Conduct-only remedies. This scenario is now the reality in the Google search case. The September 2025 ruling produced behavioral remedies, not structural ones, and left default-search payments intact. The practical effect on competitive markets is correspondingly diminished. Whether the appeal restores stronger relief is the open question.

Appellate reversal — in both directions. The Google search case is now on appeal at the D.C. Circuit, with the DOJ seeking stronger remedies and Google seeking weaker ones. Federal-court antitrust law has been narrowed by Supreme Court rulings over the past 40 years; an appellate ruling that narrows the doctrine further could constrain future cases. The FTC has likewise signaled it may appeal the Meta loss.

Settlement pressure. Settlement of the remaining major cases short of structural remedies would foreclose the relief that the underlying cases support.

Administrative posture. The political character of administrations affects DOJ and FTC posture toward platform antitrust. The current cases were filed under the Biden administration’s enforcement agenda; subsequent administrations have varied widely in their commitment to platform antitrust.

Legislative preemption. Federal legislation that preempts state-level antitrust scrutiny — including the form some federal privacy proposals have taken — could constrain the parallel state-level enforcement that has supported the federal cases.

What to watch

• The Google search appeal at the D.C. Circuit — whether the court restores structural relief, upholds the behavioral remedy, or narrows it.
• A possible FTC appeal of the Meta ruling.
• Google AdTech remedies following the separate liability finding in that case.
• DOJ v. Apple and FTC v. Amazon advancement.
• State AG case outcomes in coordination with federal cases.
• AICOA reintroduction and legislative movement.
• Appellate developments affecting tech-antitrust doctrine.
• DOJ and FTC leadership appointments and stated priorities.

Bottom line

The Google search liability ruling was the most consequential antitrust victory against a US technology company in a generation. The remedies ruling that followed is a reminder that winning liability and changing markets are different things. The court imposed behavioral limits and a data-sharing regime but declined to break off Chrome or to bar the default-search payments that built the monopoly — the conduct-remedy pattern that has constrained tech antitrust historically. The separate FTC loss against Meta points the same direction. The appeal now at the D.C. Circuit will determine whether the search case produces structural change or settles into supervised conduct. The legislative complement — AICOA-style rules that do not depend on case-by-case litigation — matters more, not less, in light of how the remedies came out.