A federal judge has ruled that Google (owned by Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL)) engaged in illegal and monopolistic practices in order to maintain its dominance in internet search. In their decision, Judge Amit P. Mehta writes, "Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly," and that "Google has exercised its monopoly power by charging supracompetitive prices for general search text ads. That conduct has allowed Google to earn monopoly profits."

The case was brought by the US Justice Department, which argued Google's practice of paying web browser companies hefty sums to be the default search engine was anti-competitive.

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This post was written by Stephanie Mikulich.