Google is desperately fighting to stop the federal government from breaking its powerful search engine monopoly, which it has exploited to manipulate elections to benefit leftist candidates.
In August, U.S. District Court Judge Amit P. Mehta ruled that Google‘s payouts to other tech companies to ensure that its search engine is automatically provided to users were illegal and monopolistic. After the Department of Justice asked the judge to force a sale of Google’s Chrome, Google countered with much less dramatic changes in hopes of appeasing the government and the court. The New York Times reported that Google’s attempts to “fend off the government’s sweeping requests” could “set a precedent for a string of other antitrust cases that challenge the dominance of tech behemoths.”
MRC Free Speech America researchers have repeatedly exposed Google’s blatant search engine manipulation before, during, and after the 2024 election, but Google is now in the midst of an antitrust legal battle that could change that.
Google consistently attempted to give the edge in search first to President Joe Biden, then to his appointed successor, Vice President Kamala Harris. In turn, Google repeatedly suppressed the campaign websites of President-elect Donald Trump and other Republicans while elevating Democrats. In addition, Google also habitually elevated content from leftist outlets denigrating the policy positions of Trump and his vice presidential pick Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), all while burying election content from right-leaning media.
Now that its lucrative election-interfering apparatus is under threat, Google is scrambling to make itself appear like the victim of government overreach. Google has pleaded that the drastic changes would harm consumers, and decried the government for being supposedly “interventionist.”
MRC Vice President for Free Speech Dan Schneider explained, “Conservatives object to using antitrust enforcement against companies simply because they are big, but Google’s repeated and egregious abuses have made it easy for most of us to realize that the law was written to stop this kind of wretched behavior.” He continued: “Google has earned whatever it has coming.”
Google has proposed milquetoast changes to its agreements with other companies that really won’t change the grip it holds over the search engine market, which still hovers around 90 percent These include “multiple default agreements across different platforms (e.g., a different default search engine for iPhones and iPads) and browsing modes, plus the ability to change their default search provider at least every 12 months.” As The Times quipped, “Google said on Friday what it thought should change to address a ruling that it had illegally maintained a monopoly over online search: not much.” [Emphasis added.]
None of this would change Google’s ability to manipulate its search engine to match its political preferences, as MRC research has shown. In fact, even Trump’s sweeping electoral victory wasn’t enough to get Google to stop putting its thumb on the scale. Recently, MRC found Google turning its sights on President-elect Trump’s nominees in searches with overwhelmingly leftist results for five consecutive weeks.
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