In United States v Google LLC (U.S. District Court, District of Columbia, 2024), the court held that Google unlawfully maintained monopolies in search and search advertising through exclusive distribution agreements. The judgment highlights how default placement and distribution payments can constitute exclusionary conduct. For scaling technology companies, this reinforces the commercial importance of distribution, default settings, and exclusivity clauses in SaaS, platform, and data partnership agreements.

For scaling technology companies, this reinforces the commercial importance of distribution, default settings, and exclusivity clauses in SaaS and data partnership agreements.”