Senator Kohl: "But you do recognize that in the words that are used in antitrust kind of oversight, your market share constitutes monopoly, dominant--special power, dominant firm, monopoly firm? Do you recognize you're in that area?"
Mr. Schmidt: "I would agree, Senator, that we're in that area. Again, with apologies because I'm not a lawyer, my understanding of monopoly findings is it's actually a judicial process..."
https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-112shrg71471/html/CHRG-11...
They can't raise prices and exclude competitors long term.
Has this conclusion: "Google has unlawfully maintained its monopoly over general search and search advertising"
The report ended up being buried, but it at least shows that credible people with lots of experience in the area believe strongly they are a monopoly.
Of course they can–remember: they get paid by advertisers, but it's the users that make the decision to use them.
For many businesses, search is the only online ad channel that actually works, and it's not straightforward to see how any competitor could catch up to their technological advantage in search.