Judge Orders Google to Face Consumer Antitrust Lawsuit Over Search

A federal judge in California has allowed a consumer antitrust lawsuit against Google to move forward, keeping legal pressure on the default-search payments that steer traffic and advertising dollars across the digital economy.

U.S. District Judge Rita F. Lin declined to dismiss the core federal claims in a proposed class action brought by consumers, while trimming part of the case on timing, Reuters reported.

In an order dated Wednesday (Jan. 21), Lin said four consumers plausibly allege that Google unlawfully foreclosed competition in U.S. general search services through exclusive dealing agreements with mobile device manufacturers, device sellers and browser developers.

The complaint relies heavily on findings of fact from the Justice Department’s 2024 search case and describes contracts that preset Google as the default search engine across Apple devices and major Android devices, as well as on Apple’s Safari browser and Mozilla’s Firefox.

According to the court, the plaintiffs contend these defaults matter because many users stick with preselected settings, allowing Google to capture queries, advertising demand and valuable search data.

The suit asserts monopolization under Section 2 of the Sherman Act, along with claims under California’s Unfair Competition Law and an unjust enrichment theory tied to Google’s retention and use of user search data.

Lin found the consumers adequately alleged antitrust injury at the pleading stage. Google argued it was unrealistic to believe rival search engines would pay users or materially reduce ads or tracking. The court rejected that view, pointing to detailed allegations of search products that already offer rewards, privacy-first features or ad-free subscriptions, and concluding it is reasonable to infer those rivals struggled because Google’s agreements denied them the scale and data needed to compete.

Lin also brushed aside Google’s contention that damages would be too complex to measure, writing: “Illinois Brick is not a get-out-of-court-free card for monopolistic retailers to play any time that a damages calculation might be complicated.”

On timing, Lin said statutory tolling tied to the government’s case and continuing violations make the claims timely as to conduct since Google’s 2017 agreement with Mozilla, while dismissing the plaintiffs’ fraudulent concealment allegations with leave to amend by Feb. 20. The federal antitrust claim, along with the California unfair-competition and restitution claims, otherwise survives.

PYMNTS has been tracking the Justice Department’s search-monopoly case and its ripple effects across the digital economy, from our coverage of the August 2024 ruling that found Google illegally maintained monopoly power in search and search text advertising, and the company’s vow to appeal, through the remedies fight in which the DOJ has argued for steps that could rein in default-search distribution payments, require certain data-sharing with rivals and account for AI-driven search, and most recently Google’s appeal efforts and its request to pause data-sharing obligations while the appeal proceeds.