Google is appealing a landmark ruling that declared it a search monopoly

Google on Friday asked a federal appeals court to overturn a landmark ruling that branded the company a monopolist in online search.

The Justice Department sued Google in 2020, alleging that the tech giant abused its monopoly to maintain its dominance of online search. In 2024, a U.S. District Court judge agreed with the government, ruling that Google violated the law when it paid companies including Apple and Mozilla to have its search engine appear as the first option on smartphones and web browsers.

In a filing with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, Google said District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta misapplied antitrust law when he found those deals crossed the line. Judge Mehta also overreached when he issued the ruling to remedy monopoly concerns by forcing Google to share some data with its competitors, the company argued.

The appeal is another twist in a years-long battle between Google and the Justice Department that has resulted in the first major antitrust ruling against the tech giant in the modern Internet era. The Department of Justice also sued the company in 2023, claiming it had a monopoly on ad technology. The government won that case, and a judge is expected to rule this year on how to fix the monopoly.

In a search for Justice Mehta’s 2024 ruling on antitrust measures, known as remedies, it fell short of the breakup of Google that the government sought. He said Google must share some of the data that powers its search engine with competitors, which could include other search engines like Microsoft Bing and chatbots like ChatGPT.

In its appeal, Google challenged Judge Mehta’s original ruling as well as his ruling on appeals. The judge’s ruling that the company violated federal antitrust law was “as fundamental an antitrust error as a court can make,” Google said in its filing.

“The court’s own findings demonstrate that Google’s conduct was lawful,” the company said in a filing. “Through hard work, bold innovation and smart business decisions, it has developed an outstanding search engine.”