2025-12-06T01:18:42.070Z<\/p>\n
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Facebook Email X<\/p>\n LinkedIn<\/p>\n Reddit<\/p>\n Bluesky<\/p>\n WhatsApp<\/p>\n Copy link<\/p>\n lighning bolt icon Impact Link<\/p>\n Save <\/p>\n Read in app<\/p>\n <\/a> <\/p>\n This story is available exclusively to Business Insider A federal judge ordered Google<\/a> to limit default search and AI app contracts to one year. A judge opened the door to upending Google’s dominance as the default search on your phone.<\/p>\n On Friday, a federal judge ordered Google to limit all default search and AI app contracts to one year, a setback for the long-term deals that have helped cement the company’s dominance on billions of devices.<\/p>\n The ruling, detailed in a December 2025 judgment, requires Alphabet’s Google to renegotiate every default-placement agreement annually, including lucrative deals with Apple’s iPhone and manufacturers like Samsung.<\/p>\n Judge Amit Mehta of the US District Court of the District of Columbia said the “hard-and-fast termination requirement after one year” is necessary to enforce antitrust relief after his landmark 2024 finding that Google illegally monopolized online search and search advertising.<\/p>\n The decision aims to open the door for rivals, especially fast-moving generative AI<\/a> companies, to compete for default spots that have historically been held for years at a time. It builds on a separate September order requiring Google to share some of the data<\/a> behind its search rankings with competitors.<\/p>\n While Google can still pay device makers for default placement, the annual renegotiation rule sharply restricts its ability to secure long-term control over the search market.<\/p>\n The ruling lands as Google faces mounting pressure in the AI race from OpenAI and a wave of newer challengers. OpenAI recently launched its own browser, Atlas, that is powered by a ChatGPT-based interface. Several other browsers powered by AI could also be coming for Google’s position as default browser, including Perplexity AI’s Comet, Microsoft’s Edge integrated with its Copilot AI, and the relatively new Opera One browser with a built-in AI assistant called Aria.<\/p>\n Google plans to appeal multiple antitrust rulings<\/a>, including those concerning its Play Store practices and search dominance. In September, the company narrowly escaped being ordered to sell off its Chrome browser<\/a> as a remedy to a ruling.<\/p>\n Google and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"2025-12-06T01:18:42.070Z Share Facebook Email X LinkedIn Reddit Bluesky WhatsApp Copy link lighning bolt icon An icon in the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":177720,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,35804,936,218,219,96981,739,96979,5094,94394,2083,1711,61,60,16868,96982,1682,96980,573,80,742],"class_list":{"0":"post-177719","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-ai-race","10":"tag-apple","11":"tag-artificial-intelligence","12":"tag-artificialintelligence","13":"tag-browser","14":"tag-company","15":"tag-default-search-deal","16":"tag-device","17":"tag-dominance","18":"tag-door","19":"tag-google","20":"tag-ie","21":"tag-ireland","22":"tag-judge","23":"tag-new-challenger","24":"tag-openai","25":"tag-ruling","26":"tag-samsung","27":"tag-technology","28":"tag-year"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177719","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=177719"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/177719\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/177720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=177719"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=177719"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=177719"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\n The ruling follows a 2024 finding that Google illegally monopolized online search markets.
\n The decision aims to boost competition from rivals in search apps and generative AI.<\/p>\n