The U.S. Justice Department and a coalition of state attorneys general on Tuesday will begin a blockbuster antitrust trial in Washington, alleging that Alphabet's Google unlawfully abused its dominance in the search-engine market to maintain monopoly power.
Here is an explainer on the key issues in the case.The U.S. and its state allies contend Google unlawfully stifled competition by paying billions of dollars to Apple
Google has grabbed a 90% market share in search in the U.S. in recent years, according to government estimates. The government said the browser agreements — steering billions of web queries to Google every day — have resulted in less choice for consumers and less innovation.Google sees things much differently.
But exclusive deals can violate antitrust law if a company is so big or powerful that it prevents rivals from entering the market, and can't prove that its curbs on industry competition are outweighed by a positive effect on consumers. More broadly, the Justice Department may argue that it wants to stop Google from leveraging its alleged search monopoly to making exclusive deals in newly emerging markets, including artificial intelligence.
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