Google Appeals Search Monopoly Ruling, Claims It Prevailed Fair and Square

*Google filed its appeal with the D.C. Circuit, arguing the district court wrongly found antitrust violations and that Apple selected its search engine through open competition.*

Google filed its appeal of the 2024 ruling that declared it an illegal monopolist in online search. The company told the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit that the lower court decision ignored evidence of competition on the merits and instead treated ordinary business success as unlawful conduct.

The filing challenges both the August 2024 liability finding and the September 2025 remedies order that would require Google to share certain search data with rivals. Google stated that the district court “crashed” through established legal standards by concluding that payments to be the default search provider on devices such as iPhones violated antitrust law. The company maintains it simply offered a better product backed by greater investment and engineering effort.

In the brief, Google writes that it “just prevailed in the marketplace fair and square.” It points to Apple’s choice of Google Search as the default on iPhone as evidence that device makers selected the engine they viewed as superior. The company argues there is no finding that it blocked competitors from making better offers or that Apple and Mozilla lacked the ability to switch defaults if a stronger alternative appeared. Google further contends that nothing it did harmed the competitive process itself.

No responses from the Department of Justice or other parties appear in the current court record. The appeal will now proceed through briefing and argument before the D.C. Circuit.

The case centers on whether default agreements and revenue-sharing payments constitute exclusionary conduct when the underlying product remains available for rivals to challenge. Google’s position treats those agreements as ordinary commercial arrangements that reflect user and partner preferences rather than barriers erected by the dominant firm.

If the appeal succeeds, the remedies requiring data sharing would likely be vacated and the liability finding would be reconsidered. Device makers and browser vendors would continue their existing default arrangements without mandated changes. If the appeal fails, Google would face obligations to provide search data to competitors and would operate under tighter constraints on future distribution deals.

The outcome will determine whether large-scale default payments remain a permissible way for a leading service to secure placement or whether courts will treat such payments as presumptively anticompetitive once a firm reaches a certain scale.

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Sources:

• The Verge
• MacRumors

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