A federal judge has ruled that Google's
$GOOGL (+0.16%) payments of 26 billion dollars to set its search engine as the standard on smartphone web browsers violates the antitrust law of the USA 🇺🇸.

Judge Amit Mehta found that these payments effectively prevented other competitors from succeeding in the market.

US antitrust-authorities accuse Google of illegally maintaining a monopoly in the field of online search and related advertising.

The government stated that Google had allowed Apple $AAPL (+1.01%), Samsung
$005930 and others billions over decades in order to be able to advertise on smartphones and web browsers to be given preferential placement on smartphones and web browsers.