Part 10 of a sourced series. This one has a hard internal line, and I'm going to hold it carefully: some of these cases are decided — a court or a regulator made a finding — and some are filed but undecided, meaning a government alleges wrongdoing that nobody has proven. I state findings as findings and allegations as allegations, and I link each company's own response. Nothing here calls an undecided case a verdict. My opinions are marked. Corrections policy at the bottom; an evidence explorer lets you check every claim.
Why an antitrust chapter, in a series about cloud
Everything earlier in this series — the depreciation lever, "cloud revenue," the lock-in pricing, the licensing fights — happens inside a market a handful of companies dominate. So the obvious question is: what does the law actually say about that dominance?
The honest answer in 2026 is it depends which company, and which case. Against Google, the verdicts are in, on two continents. Against Amazon and Apple, the U.S. government has sued — but those suits haven't been decided, and it matters enormously that we keep those two buckets apart.
So let's keep them apart.
Decided: Google is an illegal monopolist in search
This is a finding, not an allegation. On August 5, 2024, U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled in United States v. Google that Google is an illegal monopolist in general search and general search text advertising under Section 2 of the Sherman Act — with Google holding roughly 90% of general search. The court's own words: "Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly" (White & Case summary; Tech Policy Press).
Then came the part everyone expected to be dramatic — and wasn't. On September 2, 2025, Judge Mehta issued the remedies ruling and declined to break Google up. He did not order Google to divest Chrome or Android. Instead he barred exclusive distribution deals and required Google to share certain search-index and user-interaction data with qualified competitors (TechCrunch; NPR).
Google's side, in its own voice: it responded to the liability ruling and to the remedies ruling, and is appealing. Worth saying plainly: an appeal does not vacate the finding. Until a higher court says otherwise, the finding stands.
Decided: Google is a monopolist in ad tech, too
A second U.S. court, a different judge, a different market — same direction. On April 17, 2025, U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema ruled that Google illegally monopolized two ad-tech markets — publisher ad servers and ad exchanges for open-web display — and unlawfully tied its DoubleClick for Publishers product to its AdX exchange (Simpson Thacher; JURIST).
Here's where precision matters, because it's easy to overstate a win. This was the liability phase, and the court did not give the government everything: it dismissed the separate claim about the advertiser-ad-network market (JURIST). So the accurate sentence is "monopolist in two ad-tech markets, with a third claim dismissed" — not "monopolist in advertising, full stop." Google said it would appeal and laid out its position here.
Decided: Europe has been fining Google for years
Across the Atlantic, this isn't new — it's a pattern with a paper trail. On September 5, 2025, the European Commission fined Google EUR 2.95 billion for abusing its dominance in advertising technology by self-preferencing its own AdX exchange. The Commission treated the conduct as recidivism and signaled that only structural remedies — such as divestiture — might resolve the conflict of interest (European Commission, IP/25/1992; Loyens & Loeff).
One careful note on what that is: the Commission is a regulator making an administrative finding, not a court returning a verdict — a real and binding decision, but a different instrument from the Mehta and Brinkema rulings.
And it sits on top of an older record. Google was fined EUR 2.42 billion for Google Shopping self-preferencing in June 2017 — upheld by the Court of Justice in September 2024 — and EUR 4.34 billion for Android restrictions in July 2018, largely upheld in September 2022, though the fine was trimmed on appeal to EUR 4.125 billion (CNBC; Wikipedia overview). Note the Android fine was reduced, not rubber-stamped — appeals courts push back. Google will appeal the 2025 adtech fine and frames its European position here.
Pending — not proven: the Amazon case
Now the other bucket, and the line gets bright here. What is a fact is that on September 26, 2023, the FTC and 17 state attorneys general sued Amazon, alleging it illegally maintains monopoly power under Section 2 of the Sherman Act and Section 5 of the FTC Act (Thomson Reuters Practical Law). What is not a fact is the conclusion: no court has found Amazon to be a monopolist. The suit was filed; the question is open. Trial is set for October 13, 2026 (Bloomberg Law). Amazon denies wrongdoing and states its position here.
There's an intermediate step people sometimes mistake for a win. In September 2024, Judge John Chun denied Amazon's motion to dismiss in part, letting the Sherman Act and FTC Act monopolization claims proceed while dismissing certain state-law claims (Courthouse News). Read that for exactly what it is: a pleading-stage ruling that the case is allowed to go forward. It decides that the FTC gets its day in court — not that Amazon is a monopolist. Those are different sentences, and the difference is the whole point of this section.
Pending — not proven: the Apple case
Same structure, same discipline. It is a fact that in March 2024 the DOJ and 16 state and district attorneys general sued Apple, alleging it monopolizes or attempts to monopolize the U.S. smartphone and performance-smartphone markets under Section 2 of the Sherman Act (U.S. Department of Justice). It is not a fact that Apple is a monopolist — that's the allegation the case will test.
On June 30, 2025, Judge Julien Neals denied Apple's motion to dismiss, finding the DOJ had "sufficiently plead" that Apple has monopoly power in those markets (Mintz). Hold that quote tightly: "sufficiently plead" means the allegations are detailed enough to proceed — a pleading standard, not a finding on the merits. The case remains undecided. Apple disputes the claims, including how the government defines the market, and its statement is here.
My read
Opinion — Michael. Notice the asymmetry, because it's the real story. Against Google, the question of whether is largely settled — two U.S. courts and the EU all landed on "monopolist" — and the live fight is what to do about it, where Mehta's no-breakup remedy tells you how cautious courts are about actually restructuring these firms. Against Amazon and Apple, we're a stage earlier: the government has made its case on paper, judges have said "that's enough to go to trial," and that's all that's happened. I think the honest posture is to take the Google findings seriously and to take the Amazon and Apple cases seriously but not prematurely — to resist the very human pull to read "survived a motion to dismiss" as "guilty." This is the whole reason this series labels its claims: the gap between alleged and proven is exactly where careless writing turns into something untrue. Bad systems, not bad people — and one of the systems worth fixing is our own habit of collapsing a lawsuit into a verdict.
You don't have to take my read. The rulings, the fines, the complaints, and every company's response are linked above — sort the decided from the pending yourself.
Sourcing & corrections
The Mehta liability and remedies rulings are sourced to White & Case, Tech Policy Press, TechCrunch, and NPR; the Brinkema ad-tech ruling to Simpson Thacher and JURIST; the EU adtech fine to the European Commission's own release and Loyens & Loeff; the older Shopping and Android fines to CNBC, with appeal outcomes noted. The Amazon and Apple matters are sourced to Thomson Reuters Practical Law, Bloomberg Law, Courthouse News, the DOJ, and Mintz — and framed throughout as filed-but-undecided, with the pleading-stage rulings distinguished from merits verdicts. Each company's public response is linked inline and matched in the explorer. Spot an error or something unfair? Email mpolzin@zimzap.com or message me on LinkedIn — I'll review and correct.
Next — Part 11: "No Bad People, Bad Systems."
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