The question the court tried to answer, according to Albrecht, was how to open up the market to competitors. “In the Microsoft case, they pushed for big opening up of APIs and protocols and standardizations there for middleware,” Albrecht said. “In this case, they’re going to open it up by forcing the sharing of the index data. And both of those are meant to kickstart this part of the market where competition had been suffering.”

Just as in Microsoft’s case, when rivals like Sun and Oracle pressed for harsher remedies, Google competitors have said the remedies do not go far enough. 

DuckDuckGo’s CEO Gabriel Weinberg, for example, issued a statement Tuesday saying: “We do not believe the remedies ordered by the court will force the changes necessary to adequately address Google’s illegal behavior. Google will still be allowed to continue to use its monopoly to hold back competitors, including in AI search. As a result, consumers will continue to suffer. We believe Congress should now step in to swiftly make Google do the thing it fears the most: compete on a level playing field.”

The DOJ’s top antitrust official, Assistant Attorney General Abigail Slater, said in a statement Tuesday that the organization will “consider the Department’s options and next steps regarding seeking additional relief.”

Google has indicated it will appeal the court’s decision.