KGI’s work on search competition brings together experts from across economics, technology, law, and business to help advance and inform interventions to restore competition in the digital search market. Our work examines both high-profile antitrust litigation in the US and the development of novel ex-ante regulatory frameworks in Europe and the UK.
Search engines shape how billions of people find and access information and what voices get heard online. Google Search – the world’s dominant search engine – has faced mounting regulatory scrutiny and enforcement actions around the world over its anti-competitive practices designed to preserve its dominance across the web and devices. Search is a complex market where designing effective interventions requires grappling with questions related to large-scale data collection, advances in AI and other technological inputs, relationships with adjacent markets in mobile and on the web, and consumer behavior and decision-making in the market.
KGI’s work on search competition is focused on seeding and creating intellectual foundations for effective interventions amidst this complexity. Our work examines both high-profile antitrust litigation in the US and the development of novel ex-ante regulatory frameworks in Europe and the UK.
We convene experts from across economics, technology, law, and business to produce novel insights. We also produce our own technical analyses. Key outputs have included:
Designing the Technical Committee for the United States v. Google Search Antitrust Remedy, a 2026 report that provides a practical blueprint for the formation, structure, and operation of a successful Technical Committee, a court-mandated independent body of experts designed to support implementation of the Final Judgement.
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The appeals in the United States v. Google search case hinge on a fundamental question: do the District Court’s remedies address the anticompetitive conduct that maintained Google’s search monopoly, or do they leave the market largely unchanged? Eight leading economists, legal experts, and technologists argue in an amicus brief that better remedies exist to help restore meaningful competition.
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The appeals of the United States v. Google search antitrust case turn in part on whether the remedies ordered address Google’s illegal monopoly in search – or whether, by declining to ban the payments Google makes for search defaults, the District Court has left the conduct at the heart of the case largely intact. In Pay for Half, KGI’s Alissa Cooper joins leading economists and competition experts in showing how the court can reasonably cap those payments rather than ban them, opening at least half of the market to rivals, including emerging AI-powered entrants, while preserving revenue for distribution partners.
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As the European Commission advances efforts under the Digital Markets Act to require Google to share its search data with competitors, lessons from historic antitrust remedies underscore how data access could be transformational in the AI-powered search market. While the Commission’s proposals represent a novel and comprehensive approach, key improvements to data scope and sharing frequency, privacy protections, and dispute resolution are needed. US courts and enforcers charged with implementing similar provisions should take note.
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The Technical Committee is a key component of the remedies ordered in the US v. Google search antitrust case, intended to ensure effective implementation of court-ordered obligations and technical measures to promote competition in online search. KGI’s latest report provides a practical blueprint for the formation, structure, and operation of this independent body of experts.
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In its first full year in operation, KGI made its mark across technology policy venues and outlets. Through expert-led, evidence-based work, KGI helped inform policy approaches to algorithmic feed design, researcher access to data, and competition enforcement in the search market – demonstrating how independent research can shape real-world decisions in the United States and Europe.
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This year’s Digital Competition Conference brought together researchers, policymakers, businesses, litigators, and civil society experts from over 37 countries to explore the latest lessons, challenges, and opportunities in regulating and enforcing competition in digital markets.
