The DOJ’s ruling on Google’s antitrust could have huge implications for the tech world. Or it could change nothing at all.

Federal Judge Amit Mehta ruled Monday that Google has illegally monopolized Internet search by making deals with browser and phone companies. Google, for example, pays Apple about $20 billion a year to be the default search engine in its Safari browser. The judge will decide next month what to do about it, but it could go so far as to force Google to separate its search and advertising businesses, similar to the DOJ's forced breakup of Microsoft in the 1990s.

"I can't believe it took this long for the DOJ to do something about a company that has been the gateway to the entire internet for 20 years, but here we are," Bill Mann, a privacy expert at Cyber Insider, told Lifewire via email. "If the DOJ breaks up Google's monopoly, it will hurt people about the same way Microsoft's antitrust ruling did 20 years ago. Google will be forced to separate their advertising division from their mobile technology and other parts of their business. Even if advertising becomes a separate entity, it won't change the fact that the majority of people use Google for search and have mobile phones loaded with Google apps and services."

After decades of being allowed to do whatever they want in the name of “innovation,” Big Tech is finally being reined in by law, just like every other major industry that requires safety regulations to protect the public. We’re so used to Google placing search ads and ads all over the internet that we don’t see the absurd conflict between controlling access to the entire web and selling ads against that access.