Key Points

• Google and Meta are facing antitrust pressure focused on tactics they used to grow into tech giants.

• Google lost its second antitrust case in 8 months, affecting core ad business. Meta faces a trial with the FTC, which is seeking to force the company to part ways with Instagram and WhatsApp.

• Amazon and Apple also face antitrust scrutiny, accused of anticompetitive behavior in e-commerce and software integration, respectively.

Google on Thursday lost its second antitrust case in eight months when a court ruled it has an illegal monopoly in parts of the ad industry.

Google and Meta grew into titans with well-timed acquisitions, booming ad businesses and products that changed how consumers use the internet. Now, each is facing unprecedented pressure for the tactics they used to grow.

Google on Thursday lost its second antitrust case in eight months when a court ruled it has an illegal monopoly in parts of the ad industry. Current and former Meta executives, meanwhile, spent the week in court defending the company’s practices in the social-media market as part of a Federal Trade Commission trial. 

The cases could force Google and Meta to sell valuable pieces of the formidable empires they have built. For Alphabet’s Google, the federal ruling affects parts of its core advertising business, which makes up a tenth of its overall sales. The FTC seeks to force Meta to part ways with Instagram and messaging app WhatsApp. 

The Trump administration shows little sign of offering relief, and antitrust enforcement has broad bipartisan support. Meta Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg tried to lobby President Trump to agree to a settlement to avoid a trial for his company, but was unsuccessful.

John Kwoka, a professor of economics at Northeastern University who recently worked for the FTC, said the Meta and Google cases are similar to Microsoft’s antitrust case in 1998. 

“The companies’ origins were rooted in a brilliant idea but they ended up in trouble,” Kwoka said. “They end up in trouble by exploiting their bright idea.”

Mark Zuckerberg arriving at federal court in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday.

Amazon and Apple have also been accused of anticompetitive behavior. The FTC has accused Amazon of creating an illegal monopoly in the e-commerce space and plans to take the case to trial next year. A judge last year granted part of Amazon’s request to dismiss the case early, and the company has said the suit is “wrong on the facts and the law.”

The Justice Department last year sued Apple, alleging that it impedes the ability of outside software to integrate with its devices. Apple has said that it plans to vigorously defend against the lawsuit and that, if successful, the suit would hinder its ability to create the technology people expect from the company.

Prosecutors in the Google and Meta cases allege the companies knew they were behaving anticompetitively. 

Emails from Meta’s trial this week show that Zuckerberg thought he might be forced to break up his business as far back as 2018 and suggested potentially separating Instagram from Facebook. 

“I wonder if we should consider the extreme step of spinning Instagram out as a separate company,” he wrote to some of his fellow executives at the time. “As calls to break up the big tech companies grow, there is a non-trivial chance that we will be forced to spin out Instagram and perhaps WhatsApp in the next 5-10 years anyway.”

Prosecutors in the Meta case allege the company has an illegal monopoly in the personal social-networking space and bought Instagram to take a competitor out of the market. Zuckerberg, on the stand, denied that premise, testifying that Meta’s resources helped Instagram become more successful than it likely would have been otherwise.

He also inferred that Snapchat—which he tried to buy twice, the second time for $6 billion—isn’t as successful as it could have been if Meta had bought the disappearing-photos app.

Zuckerberg’s argument: Meta has been an incubator for both Instagram and WhatsApp, helping them grow and reach new heights—not putting them out of the market. 

He said social-media users spend increasing time on TikTok and YouTube, and that those companies should be included in the market that the FTC has identified. 

Meta’s nonjury trial is being heard in Washington, D.C., by U.S. District Judge James E. Boasberg.

It is unclear if U.S. District Judge James Boasberg, who said he doesn’t have an Instagram or Facebook account, will find Zuckerberg’s arguments persuasive. Boasberg has signaled at times he could rule in Meta’s favor. 

Google now has lost two antitrust cases over its practices in the search and ad markets, as well as a third dealing with how it manages third-party mobile software. The loss in the search case came in August after a federal judge ruled that Google—which at the time performed about 90% of the world’s internet searches—exploited its market dominance to crowd out competitors.

News Corp, owner of The Wall Street Journal, has a commercial agreement to supply content on Google platforms.

The loss on Thursday came after the Justice Department accused Google of acquiring smaller rivals to eliminate competition and using its dominant position to lock customers into using its tools.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema said Google forced customers to use its publisher ad server, known as DFP, by making that product the only one that could access Google’s unique ad exchange, AdX.

“Google staff understood the coercive power of the AdX-DFP tie,” the judge wrote.

Current and former media executives testified during the three-week trial that they wanted to stop using Google’s Ad Exchange product but were stuck with it because of its dominance.

A Google representative said the company has strong legal arguments for prevailing on appeal.

Now, federal judges in each of the cases will determine what happens to Google next and whether it has to sell off parts of its business to come into compliance. The first case to determine remedies starts next week.