⚠ Losing the DefaultsModerate threat

Alphabet (Google) (GOOGL) — threat to the moat

Google may keep paying for the default, just not for exclusivity — inertia survives, with a rival allowed beside it.

The distribution empire's single most valuable feature is that Google is the pre-set search engine nearly everywhere, and the gravest danger is that courts strip those defaults away. Having found the default-placement payments an unlawful maintenance of monopoly1, the court chose not to bar them: Google may still pay to be the pre-set choice, but no longer for exclusivity2. The guarantee that billions of one-tap searches flow to Google no matter whose device or browser a person uses is weaker than it was, because a paid partner is now free to put a rival beside it.

Traffic acquisition costs, by year ($B)$30.1B2019$32.8B2020$45.6B2021$49.0B2022$50.9B2023$54.9B2024$59.9B2025Form 10-Ks: payments to distribution partners and Network publishers
The defaults were never taken away: their cost doubled in six years and stays lawful as long as no deal is exclusive.

This is dangerous because defaults convert product dominance into something even more durable: a position no one has to choose. If Google must compete for each of those placements on a level field, or is barred from the deals entirely, a share of the world's default search traffic opens up at precisely the moment AI-powered rivals are hungriest to seize the entry point. The most reliable moat in the business — inertia — is exactly what a remedy here would remove.

What tempers the danger is that Google's product might well win many of those users in a fair fight, given genuine preference and two decades of habit, and that losing the deals would also relieve Google of the colossal sums it pays for them. Google will litigate for years, and the deep reflex to 'google it' is not something a court can order away even if it can ban the payments that reinforce it.

The worry was high while a payment ban was on the table; with a six-year judgment in force and under appeal3, it is moderate. The erosion that remains is real — non-exclusive defaults arrive just as the search entry point is contested for the first time in a generation — but habit and product quality hold most of the traffic, and Google still handled 91% of the world's searches in August 20264.

References
  1. ReportedThe court found the default-placement payments an unlawful maintenance of monopoly (August 2024).
    United States v. Google LLC (D.D.C., Judge Mehta) — DOJ case page: Aug 2024 liability ruling (default-search payments, about $20B a year largely to Apple, found to be unlawful monopoly maintenance); final judgment and memorandum opinion Dec 5, 2025; the United States' response and opening brief on cross-appeal, July 28, 2026 — Liability ruling Aug 2024; final judgment Dec 5, 2025; appeals 2026 · publ. 2024–2026 · source ↗
  2. ReportedGoogle may still pay for default placement, but not for exclusivity.
    Hughes Hubbard, 'Court Issues Remedies Ruling in United States v. Google Search Case' (Sept 3, 2025) — Judge Mehta's 230-page remedies ruling: no forced divestiture of Chrome or Android ('the complete divestiture of Chrome is a poor fit for this case'); payments for default placement not banned but exclusive search distribution deals prohibited; search index and user-interaction data (not ads data) to be shared with qualified competitors at marginal cost — Remedies ruling of September 2, 2025 · publ. September 3, 2025 · source ↗
  3. ReportedThe six-year judgment is in force and under appeal.
    PPC Land, 'Google files appeal challenging six-year search remedies' — Judge Mehta entered final judgment on December 5, 2025, imposing six-year behavioural remedies (data sharing, syndication, Technical Committee oversight); Google filed its notice of appeal on January 16, 2026 — December 2025 - January 2026 · publ. January 2026 · source ↗
  4. Third-party estimateGoogle handled 91.1% of the world's searches in August 2026 (StatCounter).
    StatCounter Global Stats — search engine market share, worldwide, August 2026: Google 91.1%, bing 4.5%, Yahoo! 1.23%, YANDEX 0.99%, DuckDuckGo 0.7%, Baidu 0.62% — August 2026 · publ. September 2026 · source ↗
Sources
Generated September 16, 2026