Google avoided harsh antitrust penalties for its conduct in the U.S. search market, with a judge barring the company from entering into exclusive deals but rejecting a forced spinoff of its Chrome browser and other sweeping remedies sought by the Justice Department.
U.S. District Judge Amit P. Mehta in a Tuesday ruling said Google can’t pay to be the exclusive search engine on devices and browsers, but he allowed the company to continue making payments for distribution of its products, saying a prohibition on those agreements would harm recipients such as Apple.
Mehta’s order follows his ruling last year that Google illegally monopolized the search market for more than a decade. That opinion said Google used illegal distribution agreements with companies such as Apple to build and maintain a 90% market share and prevent rivals from developing competitive alternatives.
