Antitrust Still Looms Over Big Tech. Google’s Latest Case May Have Been Unique.

Apple is facing is own antitrust case, as are Meta Platforms and Amazon. (JUAN MABROMATA/AFP via Getty Images)

Tech stocks rallied this week in the wake of seemingly mild remedies from a U.S. District Judge in the U.S. v. Google antitrust case. But investors’ party could be short lived given the potential for other U.S. antitrust cases to change the Big Tech landscape—including another Google monopoly case.

The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia said in April that Google violated antitrust law by monopolizing open-web digital advertising markets. The judge is expected to hold a hearing to determine remedies this month.

Meta Platforms, Amazon.com, and Apple are all also facing their own antitrust cases.

“Big Tech has become the monopolist of the age,” Jeffery Cross, counsel at Smith, Gambrell & Russell, told Barron’s.

The Federal Trade Commission has sued Facebook, alleging that the social media company is maintaining a monopoly through anticompetitive conduct, like acquiring Instagram in 2012 and WhatsApp in 2014. The trial for that case began in April.

The FTC also sued Amazon in September 2023, alleging that the e-commerce giant is a monopolist that uses anticompetitive actions to “stop rivals and sellers from lowering prices, degrade quality for shoppers, overcharge sellers, stifle innovation, and prevent rivals from fairly competing.” That trial isn’t set to begin until February 2027.

Meanwhile, the DOJ sued Apple in March 2024, alleging that the iPhone maker operates a monopoly over the smartphone market. A federal judge denied Apple’s motion to dismiss the lawsuit in June.

Some investors might now be betting that the outcome of these cases could be similar to Mehta’s Google ruling, which was less extreme than feared. One reason for Mehta’s more lenient than expected decision was the changing tech landscape as generative artificial intelligence chatbots surged in popularity. Internet search traffic has been falling for much of 2025 as people experiment with these chatbots, like ChatGPT and Perplexity, to get answers to queries.

“The emergence of GenAI changed the course of this case,” Mehta wrote in the ruling.

But Cross tells Barron’s that he doesn’t think AI will have the same impact on the other antitrust cases as it did this one.

“The argument is unique to a particular case, so I don’t think you can use it across the board,” Cross said.

Write to Angela Palumbo at angela.palumbo@dowjones.com