The long-running antitrust battle over Google has reached a defining moment. A US judge has ruled that the tech giant may retain its prized Chrome browser and Android operating system, but it can no longer use exclusive contracts to cement its supremacy in an online search. The ruling also obliges Google to share certain search data with rivals, a move aimed at giving competition a fighting chance.

This outcome reflects the difficulty of restraining a company whose products have become digital infrastructure in themselves. Breaking up Chrome or Android might have caused massive disruptions, not only to Google but to the global ecosystem of users, developers and device makers. The court therefore chose a middle path: strip away the practices that lock in dominance while leaving the machinery of daily internet life intact. At the heart of the matter is the power of defaults. Google paid an astonishing $26 billion in a single year........

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