Michigan Join Federal Antitrust Lawsuit Against Google

MICHIGAN — Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel Thursday announced that Michigan was among states joining the U.S. Department of Justice in a landmark lawsuit that accuses Google of violating federal antitrust laws by entering into exclusionary business agreements that shut out competitors and suppressed innovation.

Google’s anticompetitive behavior has unlawfully maintained the company’s monopoly on internet search and search-based advertising at the expense of consumers, Nessel's office said in a news release. Nearly 90 percent of all internet searches in the U.S. are on Google, leaving consumers with little choice other than to accept its less popular privacy practices and data collection policies.

“Google’s alleged aggressive and anticompetitive business practices have allowed it to solidify its grasp on the market and stifled competition to the detriment of consumers,” Nessel said in a statement Thursday. “By monopolizing the internet search functions used by so many, and the lucrative advertisements that are tied to it, the company has established significant control over what marketing products are being pushed out to consumers, the search results users are presented and, most importantly, the data those users have – in some cases, unwittingly – provided.

"This is an unlawful practice that must be corrected to provide the market with competitive alternatives to improve search-engine capabilities for the benefit of consumers.”

The lawsuit alleges that in violation of the Sherman Antitrust Act, Google pays billions of dollars each year to device makers like Apple and Samsung, and to carriers like AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile, to make Google their default internet search engine. Some of those contracts prohibit similar agreements with competing search engines, according to a news release.

Google is the preinstalled default search provider on all Apple devices and on virtually all devices running the Android operating system, among others. On mobile devices, Google’s exclusionary agreements cover more than 80 percent of all U.S. search queries.

Even for search queries not covered by Google’s exclusionary contracts, almost half occur on Google-owned search access points, such as Chrome, its browser, or Pixel, its smartphone, Nessel's office said.