We all have to do with Google today: we search for vacation spots, restaurants to go to, the latest news on our topics of interest, and even papers on complex and highly academic subjects.

According to the SEO.AI website, Google processes approximately 99,000 searches every second, or about 8.5 billion searches per day and approximately 2 trillion (million million million) global searches per year. 

This shows the impact of the famous search engine on the lives of most of humanity.

That is why it is surprising that there is no generalized discussion after the ruling issued by a judge of the Court of Columbia in the United States that declared Google as a monopoly in the Internet search market and, consequently, in the billionaire online advertising market: according to Mordor Intelligence, this year this industry will reach a value of US$258 billion and is expected to grow to US$431 billion in 2029.

The case against Google became famous because the U.S. Department of Justice initiated the lawsuit before a District of Columbia court in 2020.

In early August 2024, the verdict was given by Judge Amit P. Mehta who considered that there were restrictive competition practices such as payments to suppliers and hardware developers to prioritize the use of Google in devices of various brands.

Kent Walker is the president of Global Affairs for Alphabet and Google and has been the company's spokesperson in this legal debate. In September of last year, he wrote an article on his Google blog entitled “People use Google because it's useful to them.” He assured that if the search engine is the most used in the world, it is because it has achieved great technological developments that make life easier for the people who use it.

But the fact is that there is already a precedent and although the company has announced that it will appeal the decision of this first instance, the debate is already on the table and once again brings to light the enormous risks of a context of large technology players that have business relevance in many sectors.

This week it was mentioned that the Columbia judge's decision will imply that Google could suffer a total transformation in its business structure.

According to Bloomberg News Agency, that is what the Department of Justice is contemplating within the possible paths to the future.

There will be new developments in this chapter so we will talk about it in the future.

Google is facing this legal challenge nowadays, but additional technological threats are rising in the landscape such as Artificial Intelligence which could affect the core of its business. AI has got the heads of the company thinking about the implications of search interfaces becoming “closed loops” from which almost no traffic goes to other websites. That implies a profound impact on user behavior and, consequently, affects the advertising business.

Google is looking for answers and we will keep an eye on this issue.