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A judge opened the door to upending Google’s dominance as the default search on your phone.
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.
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.
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.
The decision aims to open the door for rivals, especially fast-moving generative AI 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 behind its search rankings with competitors.
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.
Google and the Justice Department did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
