The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday edition that Justice Amit P. Mehta of U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found on Monday that Alphabet's Google had violated antitrust laws by stifling rivals in Internet search to protect its monopoly. A New York Times dispatch to The Globe reports that the ruling could have major ripple effects for competition. U.S. regulators have also accused Apple, Amazon and Meta of violating antitrust laws by advantaging their own products on the platforms they run and acquiring smaller rivals. The Google ruling, and potential remedies to be decided by Justice Mehta, are likely to weigh heavily on those cases, including a second lawsuit against Google over ad technology, which goes to trial next month. Justice Mehta's ruling is "a predictor of what other courts might do," said Vanderbilt University law professor Rebecca Haw Allensworth. "You can also expect other judges to read this opinion and be influenced by it." The influence of Microsoft's antitrust case in 2000 was apparent in the Google decision. In Justice Mehta's 277-page judgment, Microsoft appeared on 104 pages, both as a rival to Google and as a legal precedent. Google has said it will appeal the ruling.