Following his decision United States federal court for online searches and related advertising, Google answers:

“The decision recognizes that Google offers the best search engine, but concludes that we should not be allowed to make it readily available.

We appreciate the Court’s conclusion that Google is ‘the highest quality search engine in the industry, trusted by hundreds of millions of daily users’, that Google ‘has long been the best search engine, especially on mobile devices ‘, that it ‘continues to innovate in search’ and that ‘Apple and Mozilla occasionally evaluate Google’s search quality against its competitors and find Google to be superior’.

Given this, and the fact that people are looking for more and more information in more and more ways, we intend to appeal.

As this process continues, we will remain focused on making products that people find useful and easy to use.

Kent Walker, President of Global Affairs at Google.”

The decision

Yesterday, a judge in Washington ruled that Google, one of the giants of the Internet, is guilty of monopolistic practices, especially with regard to its search engine after through contracts it forced it as the default software on various devices.

The judge found that “after carefully considering the testimony and evidence, he concluded that Google is a monopoly and has acted in a manner to maintain that monopoly.”

The fine to be imposed on the company will be determined at the next meeting.

The group had been accused of paying tens of billions of dollars, up to $26 billion last year alone, to ensure the search engine would be the default software on some “smartphones” and web browsers. Most of this amount was given to the Apple company.

“The distribution agreements signed by Google pre-empt a significant portion of the search engine market and deprive its competitors of opportunities to compete with it,” the judge ruled.

Alphabet, the parent company of Google, fell to $160.64 on the New York Stock Exchange, down 4.61%.

US Attorney General Merrick Garland in a statement called the decision “a historic victory for the American people” stressing that “no company is above the law”.