Google's Voice Assistant Restrictions Survive Antitrust Challenge as Judge Advances Sensory's Tying Claims
A D.C. federal judge let Sensory's antitrust claims over Google's voice assistant restrictions proceed while dismissing its broader search and advertising claims.
Editor's Note ·
- Clarification:
- The headline characterizes the surviving claims as "Sensory's Tying Claims." None of the three sources reporting on Judge Mehta's July 2026 ruling (Bloomberg Law x2, Law360) describe the surviving claims using the term "tying." That term appears only in Sensory's original, since-superseded April 2022 complaint (Count II, an illegal-tying theory) and in an April 2025 MLex report of Google arguing the opposite — that Sensory's complaint lacks a valid tying theory. The headline's framing is a plausible inference from the case's litigation history, not a fact stated by the sources describing what actually survived the ruling.
- Correction:
- Two quotes presented in quotation marks are paraphrases, not verbatim source text. The article attributes to Law360 the quote "permitted Sensory Inc., a software developer, to advance antitrust allegations focused on voice assistant and related technology markets, but eliminated its broader claims concerning general search and advertising sectors"; Law360's actual text reads "Software developer Sensory can pursue antitrust claims alleging Google illegally maintains monopolies over voice assistant and similar technology markets, but not its broader claims involving the general search and advertising markets." Separately, the article quotes MLex as saying Sensory "possesses no search engine or search product of its own"; MLex's actual text reads Sensory "has no search engine or search product of its own."
Overview
A federal judge in Washington has allowed Sensory Inc.’s antitrust lawsuit against Google to proceed on claims that the company illegally restricted competition in voice assistant technology, while narrowing the case by dismissing broader claims tied to Google’s general search and advertising businesses. The ruling Monday by Judge Amit P. Mehta of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia came more than four years after the Silicon Valley voice-recognition firm first sued the tech giant, according to Bloomberg Law.
What We Know
- Judge Mehta “permitted Sensory Inc., a software developer, to advance antitrust allegations focused on voice assistant and related technology markets, but eliminated its broader claims concerning general search and advertising sectors,” according to Law360.
- The claims allowed to proceed center on “verbal commands that activate voice-controlled devices” and Google’s deals with Android device makers, according to Bloomberg Law.
- Sensory first sued Google in April 2022, but that case was dismissed under a tolling agreement that let other pending Google antitrust litigation move forward first, according to Bloomberg Law. The company refiled its complaint on October 1, 2024, as No. 1:24-cv-02788 in the same D.C. federal court, Bloomberg Law reported.
- Sensory describes itself in its original 2022 complaint as a “Silicon Valley based independent technology company and innovator in the development of wakewords and other voice recognition technology, including custom voice assistants, voice control, and sound ID technologies,” according to the original complaint, which sought relief under Sections 1 and 2 of the Sherman Act.
- Sensory alleges Google “constructed a series of artificial barriers” to keep consumers from using competing voice assistants and wakeword technology to reach non-Google search engines, and that Google’s requirements made rival assistants “so cumbersome to use that they are effectively blocked,” according to Bloomberg Law.
- The company alleges Google barred device manufacturers from letting consumers choose between Google Assistant and rival voice assistants tied to alternative search engines, and separately contracted with Apple and Samsung to keep Siri and Bixby tied to Google’s own search engine, according to Bloomberg Law.
- Google had sought dismissal of the entire case, arguing Sensory “possesses no search engine or search product of its own” and lacks antitrust standing because its claims rest solely on Google’s agreements with Android device makers, according to MLex.
What We Don’t Know
Bloomberg Law’s and Law360’s accounts of Monday’s order do not include the judge’s full written reasoning for which individual claims were dismissed versus allowed to proceed, nor a timeline for further proceedings such as a trial date. The scope of damages Sensory is now seeking under the narrowed complaint has not been reported.
Context
The case is one of several private antitrust actions that have followed the Justice Department’s own search-monopoly case against Google, in which a federal court found the company had illegally monopolized search through exclusivity deals with device manufacturers and browsers, according to Bloomberg Law. Google is separately appealing that conviction and its remedies order before the D.C. Circuit.