Google’s search monopoly just became a utility

The government tried to turn Google into a cautionary tale. Instead, Judge Amit P. Mehta turned it into a public utility. His remedial order late Tuesday in the long-running U.S. v. Google antitrust case banned exclusive contracts for Search, Chrome, Assistant, and Gemini — no more locking up the on-ramps of the internet. But it also left the cash lanes wide open: Google can keep paying to be the default and doesn’t have to spin off its browser, Apple can keep charging rent for the privilege, and the rest of the ecosystem can keep lining up for their slice of the toll. The homepage, in other words, isn’t a page anymore; it’s the tollbooth where discovery begins.

If that sounds like a split verdict, Wall Street called it a win before the ink on the deal was even dry. 

Google’s parent company, Alphabet, saw its stock shoot higher — about 8.5% by 11:30 a.m. ET; Apple gained a few percent (2.8%) just for keeping its Google annuity intact. Wedbush analysts wrote immediately following the ruling that the government “folds like [a] cheap suit.” There were victory laps all around. “This is a monster win for Cupertino, and for Google it's a home run ruling that removes a huge overhang on the stock,” Wedbush analysts led by tech bull Dan Ives cheered in a Wednesday analyst note, sounding more like a color commentator calling a walk-off than a sell-sider. “While in theory Google is barred from ‘exclusive deals’ for search this now lays the groundwork for Apple to continue its deal and ultimately likely double down on more AI related partnership with Google Gemini down the road.”

Deepwater Asset Management co-founder and managing partner Gene Munster summed up the general vibe in fewer words on social media: “Good news for big tech, the regulator’s bark is bigger than the bite.”

Mehta’s ruling was the business equivalent of a ceasefire: Google keeps the pipes, Apple keeps the tollbooth, and the government gets to claim it outlawed exclusivity. Everyone else? They get to read the fine print and see if “qualified competitor” means lifeline or trap door.

The price of being the default

For decades, the most valuable real estate on the web hasn’t been a billboard or an app — it’s the first box you type into without thinking. That omnibox, search bar, Spotlight window, or Siri answer is the gateway drug of the attention economy. And Google has been paying rather handsomely to be the default dealer.

Mehta didn’t cancel those payments; he just stripped away the exclusivity — less smashing a monopoly and more as converting it to metered parking. Apple still controls the on-ramp, but now the rent can be repriced every year and, in theory, collected from more than one bidder. Morgan Stanley’s Erik Woodring estimated in a Wednesday note that Apple already takes in over $25 billion annually from Google’s search deal at 95%-plus margins. With exclusivity gone, Cupertino can run an annual auction across Safari, Spotlight, and Siri, playing Google, Microsoft, and maybe even Perplexity off each other like landlords deciding which café gets the scenic view.

For Apple, this isn’t a regulatory headache; it’s a new line item. “We now see a green light for a bigger Gemini AI partnership between Apple and Google with this DOJ case now in the rear view mirror,” Ives wrote. In other words, Apple can keep taking Google’s checks, flirt with other suitors, and maybe pocket extra fees for AI-powered defaults. That’s not a compromise — it’s a business model.

Google, for its part, isn’t weeping. It remains the bidder of choice for Apple’s default slot, still controls distribution across Android and Chrome, and now gets the market certainty of a remedies order that looks more like guardrails than a guillotine. Alphabet rallied in after-hours trading because investors may love just one thing more than they love dominance: dominance that’s legally codified.

Of course, critics see through the sugar high. DuckDuckGo’s Gabriel Weinberg warned on X that the order won’t “force the changes necessary” to end Google’s stranglehold, predicting “consumers will continue to suffer” and saying that “Congress should now step in to swiftly make Google do the thing it fears the most: compete on a level playing field.” Epic Games’ Tim Sweeney posted on X that Google lost the liability phase but “resoundingly” won the remedies — “Whoa,” he said — likening the ruling to a convicted bank robber sentenced to probation where he can “continue robbing banks but must share data on how they rob banks with competing bank robbers.” (Sweeney also amplified a post from Matt Stoller, a researcher at the American Economic Liberties Project, that said “In America, crime pays. Here’s a quick and dirty summary of a judge letting Google get away with monopoly.”) And Brave Software CEO Brendan Eich, who co-founded Mozilla and Firefox and created JavaScript, said in a reply on X that the ruling left monetization untouched: “We can’t beat Google the convicted monopoly abuser on payment.”

Cynical? Sure. But this is Monopoly, not Candy Land. A metered tollbooth is still a tollbooth. The only question is whether more bidders actually pull up to pay.

Who gets the keys to the internet?

The other half of Mehta’s blueprint is harder to sell in a soundbite but is potentially more radical: data-sharing. Google must make parts of its search index and user-interaction logs available to “qualified competitors.” Ads data is essentially off-limits, but the raw map of the internet — plus clickstream behavior — could, in theory, give startups enough oxygen to compete with the trillion-dollar incumbents.

In practice, the remedy reads less like a coup and more like a policy memo. Who qualifies? How fast is the feed? How do you balance freshness with privacy? Lucinda Guthrie, the head of M&A data and intelligence platform Mergermarket said, “The question is what will make these competitors ‘qualified’ For a genuine new entrant in the AI search market, this data could be transformative, but will they be allowed access to it?” If the bar is high — ironclad security, capital requirements, service-level audits — the sandbox could become a velvet-rope club. Too low, and Google could cry regulatory overreach.

Mozilla struck a more hopeful note. CEO Laura Chambers said in an emailed statement that she was encouraged that the court recognized “the risk of unintended consequences when trying to improve search competition,” while reaffirming Mozilla’s commitment to “an internet that’s open, accessible, and built for the public good.” Firefox’s lifeline isn’t cut, and the data feed might give it more to work with.

Publishers, predictably, saw less to celebrate. Danielle Coffey of the News/Media Alliance told Business Insider the ruling was a “missed opportunity” and lamented that newsrooms can’t opt out of appearing in AI Overviews without disappearing from search entirely. “We’re not seeing traffic come from AI overviews and AI mode,” she warned. “By its nature, it’s answering the question rather than redirecting the user.”

Even Google’s own statement, at times, betrayed ambivalence. “The Court has imposed limits on how we distribute Google services, and will require us to share Search data with rivals,” the company said, adding that it had “concerns” about privacy. Of course it does: The world’s best retrieval engine now has to decide how much of its map to hand over without giving away the compass. Call this metered moat a search commons or call it compliance theater, but the fact is that the U.S. has chosen to regulate search like infrastructure — service levels, eligibility rules, and audits. The EU still prefers ceremonies such as choice screens. But Washington is now in the business of plumbing.

First-word advantage

Here’s the twist that Mehta’s remedies practically scream at anyone paying attention: The future fight isn’t about a results page; it’s about who speaks first. The first “Hello!” you get from your phone, your car, your watch, or Mark Zuckerberg’s “smart” glasses is the new homepage. And Mehta’s order specifically drags Google’s AI access points — Gemini, Assistant — into the non-exclusivity regime.

That matters because the Edge OS is the next tollbooth. Agents, lock-screen widgets, glanceable answers, voice greetings, etc., are the micro-surfaces where defaults harden into habits. Apple, sitting atop the most valuable of those surfaces, now has the legal cover to run annual auctions across them. Google will keep writing checks. Microsoft will push Copilot. Smaller players may bid for niche lanes. Cupertino becomes the auctioneer of attention.

On Android, Google will do what Google does: Design right up to the edge of the remedy, nudging users back toward its defaults without technically breaking the rules. CEO Sundar Pichai has already warned that broad data-sharing could let rivals reverse-engineer Google’s systems, and he’s not necessarily wrong — the commons could seed the very agents that threaten Google’s primacy.

Skeptics see all this as a shell game. Sweeney’s “probation for bank robbers” quip may be glib, but it lands because defaults still matter more than footnotes. Weinberg insists that without structural changes, Google will keep holding back competitors. Eich grumbles that leaving monetization intact means smaller rivals are still stuck racing a car built in a wind tunnel. And yet Mehta’s restraint may be the point. Maximalist remedies invite appeal and paralysis. Behavioral remedies — contestable defaults, shared data, shorter contracts — may actually shift behavior faster. They don’t crown winners; they change the price of entry.

Of course, Google’s fight isn’t entirely over; the epilogue is already in motion. The company still has an appeal pending on last year’s liability ruling that branded it an illegal monopolist, plus a fresh DOJ case over its search advertising empire, not to mention a full docket of Brussels investigations that make Washington’s remedies look like probation terms. Mergermarket’s Guthrie said, “The tussle with antitrust enforcers is not over yet.” Tuesday’s order may have metered the tollbooth, but the traffic cops are still circling the block.

And even the remedies themselves are hardly set in stone. Brave’s Eich pointed out that the devil isn’t in the decision, it’s in the committees; key revenue-sharing caps and compliance rules have been punted to a technical panel with wide discretion. He blasted the vagueness in a series of posts, writing on X, “What is going on, comrades?” and calling the whole setup “Sovietnik.” In other words, the next phase of the Google case won’t just be fought in appellate courts; it will be fought in the weeds — rule-writing, cap-setting, and backroom discretion that could turn “competition” into another bureaucratic parlor game.

Which brings us back to the tollbooth. The remedies didn’t kill it. They metered it. They handed Apple the whistle and told the rest of the industry to line up. For now, that’s enough to keep investors bullish, Google compliant, and regulators claiming victory. But the real story is structural: The U.S. is choosing to govern tech monopolies like infrastructure — not monopolies. The default isn’t a birthright; it’s a lease. The moat isn’t filled in; it’s tolled.

And if you want to know what the next decade of search looks like, don’t watch the results page. Watch the tollbooths.