The Justice Department and 11 U.S. states have hit Google with an antitrust lawsuit. Yahoo Finance's Brian Sozzi, Alexis Christoforous, and Dan Howley break down the details.

Video Transcript

BRIAN SOZZI: Some breaking news on coming out of Google here. Tech Editor Dan Howley is here with it. Dan.

DAN HOWLEY: Yeah, so the Department of Justice has filed a lawsuit with 11 different states against Google alleging that it operates a illegal monopoly in general search as well as its search advertising practices. They go on to say that they have exclusionary agreements with different manufacturers including device manufacturers such as Samsung, LG, Motorola and major US wireless carriers AT&T, T-Mobile and Verizon, our parent company, as well as other browser developers to secure default status for its general search engine, and that allows it to operate that illegal monopoly that the DOJ is alleging. They say that it's under 60% of all general search queries fall under these kinds of exclusionary agreements and that between those, Google effectively owns or controls search distribution channels accounting for roughly 80% of general search queries in the United States.

They also go on to say that Google monetizes its search monopoly in markets for advertising, in general search for text advertising, both of which Google has monopolized for many years. So this is going to be a massive case for the government to undertake. Google obviously not stepping back. They've already issued a press release saying that the DOJ's lawsuit is deeply flawed, and they will fight it, and we'll just have to see where this goes now.

It looks like, though, this will be a years long process. We remember the Microsoft case, that it spanned multiple years, but there was significant damage done to Microsoft. As a result of having to deal with that case, they missed out on the mobile revolution with smartphones and browsers, quite frankly, and that's why Google and Apple managed to rise to the prominence that they have now. We'll see if Google faces the same kind of roadblocks going forward now.

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: What about pressure on the stock price? Because I haven't seen a lot of movement there. One might think that once the suit was brought, investors might be heading for the exits. Does this actually show that at the end of the day, Wall Street believes that nothing of great consequence will happen to Google here?

DAN HOWLEY: Yeah, the stock is up slightly this morning just less than a percent, but you know, I think really what it means is that the actual outcome is going to be years away most likely, and I think that that's what investors are looking at. They don't see this as something that's going to impact them in the near term, plus they have billions of in reserves that they can use to fight this case. So they may be thinking, well, Google's not going to get broken up, and most of the legal scholars that we've spoken to, as well as others here at Yahoo Finance, have said that, you know, this is not going to result in a breakup of these big tech companies. It'll probably have some kind of order where they have to change the way they operate their business to a degree, but it wouldn't be something as dramatic as a general breakup. We saw that with Microsoft.

BRIAN SOZZI: But Dan, also worth noting here too, this is not just the Google thing. I think a lot of investors now have to take a step back and think, you know what? Maybe Facebook gets a case thrown at it, maybe Amazon does too as well, and that could be a cloud over these stocks.

DAN HOWLEY: Yeah, that's something that they actually said in their call. They basically said, look, this is just the start of our review of these different companies. Didn't name any names in particular, but we know that Amazon, Facebook and Apple are also under review by the DOJ as well as state attorneys general because of the hold that they have on the large swaths of the economy.

You know, Apple a $2 trillion company, Amazon closing in there. Microsoft left out of that conversation, but they are still just as powerful as the others, and Amazon, obviously. All four of the CEOs for Apple, Amazon, Google, and Facebook were in front of Congress earlier this year, and they were grilled pretty hard, and the takeaway was that it was Google and Amazon and Facebook that seemed to get the brunt of the kind of questioning from lawmakers. Apple was kind of left to its own devices more or less, but more recently, we've seen a lot more pushback as far as developers go against Apple, and we'll have to see where that goes. But if the next shoe is going to drop, it seems most likely that it will be Amazon or Facebook.