Google’s Search Monopoly Faces a £5 Billion Confrontation in the UK

In an escalating confrontation between one of the world’s most dominant technology firms and the legal systems of democratic economies seeking to restore market balance, Google now faces a £5 billion class-action lawsuit in the United Kingdom. The legal action, launched before the UK’s Competition Appeal Tribunal and led by Professor Or Brook—a specialist in competition law—alleges that Google, the core search and advertising arm of Alphabet Inc., has deliberately engaged in systematic exclusionary conduct across mobile platforms to suppress competition and entrench its monopoly position in the search advertising sector, resulting in considerable harm to advertisers and, by extension, the public digital economy.

The claim asserts that Google has orchestrated a dual-pronged strategy to dominate mobile search and advertising markets by securing exclusive default positions on both Android and iOS devices. On Android, the company is alleged to have contractually obligated phone manufacturers to pre-install the Google Search app and Chrome browser, making these the default access points to the internet. Simultaneously, Google reportedly paid Apple vast sums—estimated in the tens of billions of dollars annually—to ensure that Google Search remained the default search engine on iPhones and other Apple devices. This dual-systemic intervention across competing mobile ecosystems allegedly created insurmountable entry barriers for alternative search providers, rendering fair market conditions unattainable and thereby allowing Google to inflate prices for its search advertisements far beyond what would have prevailed in a competitive environment.

The class action, representing tens of thousands of UK businesses, contends that these practices deprived advertisers of meaningful alternatives and permitted Google to impose supra-competitive prices on businesses attempting to reach customers through its platform. Professor Brook emphasized that for many firms, visibility on Google’s first page of search results constitutes an existential necessity. Due to Google’s dominance—accounting for an estimated 90% of all UK internet searches—there exists a de facto compulsion for businesses to engage with Google’s ad products, despite the elevated pricing and opaque platform mechanics. Brook framed this as a textbook instance of leveraging monopoly control in one market (search) to distort another (digital advertising).

Google, in a statement from a company spokesperson, dismissed the lawsuit as speculative and opportunistic, insisting that users and advertisers alike choose Google voluntarily due to the quality and utility of its services rather than the absence of alternatives. Nonetheless, the broader regulatory landscape increasingly casts doubt on such defenses. In January, the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched an investigation into Google’s search practices, particularly their effects on the competitiveness of digital advertising. That probe remains ongoing. The CMA has acknowledged the structural dependence of millions of users and over 200,000 UK businesses on Google’s digital ecosystem for both search access and online advertising.

The legal action in the UK is far from an isolated event. Google is concurrently facing mounting legal and regulatory scrutiny in multiple jurisdictions. In the United States, it is currently embroiled in its second major antitrust trial—this one focused on whether the company unlawfully monopolized the digital advertising market. This trial follows its loss in a landmark antitrust case in August 2024, which Google is now appealing. In a particularly revealing detail from the ongoing litigation, a senior Google advertising executive reportedly compared the company’s vertically integrated advertising structure to that of a financial institution such as Goldman Sachs or Citibank owning and operating the New York Stock Exchange—a remark that illustrates the degree to which Google simultaneously controls both supply and demand in digital advertising, setting prices and auction rules to its own advantage.

The implications of a potential loss in these antitrust proceedings are profound. A court ruling against Google in the US case could compel the company to divest significant parts of its ad tech business, potentially dismantling the very revenue model that constitutes Alphabet’s financial backbone. The precedent would also likely resonate globally, setting the stage for a regulatory renaissance aimed at curtailing the excessive consolidation of market power in the hands of a few transnational tech giants.

In parallel, the European Commission has charged Google with violating the Digital Markets Act by structurally favoring its own services in search engine results, to the detriment of rival platforms. The Commission alleges that Google breached legal obligations to treat third-party services in a fair, transparent, and non-discriminatory manner—a central principle enshrined in the new legislation designed to rebalance the digital marketplace. Under this regulatory framework, violations may trigger fines of up to 10% of global annual revenues, or 20% in cases of repeat offenses, putting Alphabet at risk of multibillion-euro penalties should further infractions be found.

Overlaying this regulatory pressure is a growing geopolitical dimension. Former US President Donald Trump has reportedly signaled that regulatory action against American tech firms abroad may be met with retaliatory economic measures, including tariffs on foreign imports. This veiled threat appears to have prompted the UK government to contemplate a reduction in the headline rate of its digital services tax—a levy introduced in 2020 targeting the revenues of major technology corporations such as Google, Amazon, and Apple. This tax currently raises approximately £800 million annually for the UK Treasury. The potential rollback of this measure, reportedly intended as a conciliatory gesture toward Trump in the face of mounting transatlantic tensions, underscores the complexity of regulating digital giants whose power transcends national borders and intertwines with global diplomatic and trade relations.

This captures the convergence of legal, regulatory, and geopolitical forces now converging on Google and its advertising empire. The lawsuit brought by Professor Brook is not merely an isolated legal action, but a symptom of a deeper systemic reckoning with the concentration of digital power that has defined the past two decades of economic life. At its core is a question of democratic accountability: whether public authorities can reassert control over digital infrastructures that have become foundational to commerce, communication, and the production of knowledge itself.