A federal judge has ruled that Google's
$GOOGL (-0,6 %) 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 (+0,65 %), 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.