Critics see Google ruling as insufficient and have privacy concerns

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"Google may continue to use its monopoly to slow down competitors, even in AI search." This is how one of the competitors in the search engine market sees the latest ruling in the antitrust proceedings against Google. Despite its recognized monopoly position, the data company escaped being split up and got away with conditions. In addition to criticism of a ruling that is generally considered too lenient, there are now also calls for stricter laws to improve and safeguard competition in the technology sector.

Last year, a US federal court ruled that Google's search engine business was illegal, and this week Judge Amit Mehta announced the resulting sanctions. According to the ruling, Google can keep Chrome and Android, but must share search data with its competitors. However, the plaintiffs, the US Department of Justice and a number of US states, had called for the data company to be split up in order to curb Google's dominant market position.

Criticism of a supposedly lenient sentence

The fact that this did not happen is now being widely criticized. Gabriel Weinberg, CEO of the DuckDuckGo search engine, explains that "the conditions ordered by the court will force the necessary changes to adequately counter Google's illegal behavior." He is therefore calling on the US Congress to intervene in order to force Google to increase competition.

The US "News/Media Alliance", formerly the "Newspaper Association of America", criticizes the fact that Google can continue to capture online content and use it for its own AI products. "Google is forcing content creators to release their content for use by its AI offerings in order to stay in Google Search," writes Danielle Coffey, President and CEO of the News/Media Alliance. "This is a hopeless scenario that will continue to hurt publishers who invest in high-quality, journalistic and creative content. The ability for publishers to opt out of Google's AI is critical to preserving an open internet free of anti-competitive behavior and ensuring a level playing field for companies across industries."

Concerns about AI and data protection

The head of the "Tech Oversight Project" takes the same line. "While Judge Amit Mehta's decision blocks some of Google's predatory practices, it does not do justice to this historic moment," explains Sacha Haworth. "It shows that his decision was based on speculative arguments about generative AI, where Google is already a dominant player due to its monopoly entanglement and distribution advantage. The search engine is one of the most important conduits for future AI queries, and it is abundantly clear that rather than take the hard road, Judge Mehta would much rather let Google continue to bend the Internet and our economy to its will than enforce the law, which is intended to create a level playing field that benefits the American people and innovative, new businesses."

There are also concerns about the judge's requirement that Google share search data and results with "qualified competitors". Matt Schruers, President and CEO of the Computer and Communications Industry Association, an advocacy group for the information and communications technology industry, explains: "For consumers, the ruling means that Google will be forced to share search queries and other data with certain competitors, which could have significant privacy and national security implications."

Google and Ministry of Justice examine legal remedies

The Competitive Enterprise Institute, on the other hand, wonders who could be considered a "qualified competitor" and whether this benefits consumers or just Google's competitors. The US-based, politically conservative, libertarian think tank believes Google has the right to challenge the decision on the basis of the original reasoning.

So far, however, the data company has not decided on an appeal. "We have concerns about the impact of these requests on our users and their privacy and are carefully reviewing the decision," Google wrote in a statement on the latest ruling.

The US Department of Justice is also considering appealing the ruling. Abigail Slater, Assistant Attorney General for the Department's Antitrust Division, describes the ruling as an "important step in an important antitrust case", but says the aim is to "restore competition to the long-monopolized search market". She therefore writes at X: "We are now weighing up our options and considering whether the conditions imposed are sufficient to achieve this goal."

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