PHOTO COLLECTION: Sexual Misconduct Sean "Diddy" Combs

This is a collection of photos chosen by AP photo editors.

Houston lawyer Tony Buzbee holds a news conference at his office announcing that he's representing 120 accusers who have come forward with sexual misconduct allegations against Sean “Diddy” Combs, the hip-hop mogul who is awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges, Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, in Houston. (Elizabeth Conley/Houston Chronicle via AP)

Justin Dior Combs, second from left, exits Manhattan federal court, Thursday, Oct. 10 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

Attorney for Sean "Diddy" Combs, Anthony Ricco, speaks to the members of media as he exits Manhattan federal court, Thursday, Oct. 10 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

In this courtroom sketch, Sean "Diddy" Combs' defense attorney Marc Agnifilo, left, addresses the judge while Combs, seated second from right, in prison uniform, watches during a hearing in federal court in New York, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024. Combs' new defense attorney, Anthony Ricco is seated far right. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)

In this courtroom sketch, Sean "Diddy" Combs, left, upon entering the courtroom hugs his attorney Anthony Ricco prior to the hearing in Federal court in New York, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)

Janice Combs, right, mother of Sean "Diddy Combs, arrives at Manhattan federal court, Thursday, Oct. 10 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

Janice Combs, right, King Combs, center, exit Manhattan federal court where hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs pleaded not guilty to charges including racketeering conspiracy and sex trafficking, Thursday, Oct. 10 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura)

In this courtroom sketch, Sean "Diddy" Combs, right, in shackles, gestures to his mother, seated in the audience far left, who is blowing kisses to him following his hearing in federal court in New York, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2024. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)

FILE -Sean 'Diddy' Combs participates in "The Four" panel during the FOX Television Critics Association Winter Press Tour in Pasadena, Calif., Jan. 4, 2018. (Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)

FILE - Dawn Richard arrives at the 66th annual Grammy Awards on Sunday, Feb. 4, 2024, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)

Marc Agnifilo, attorney for Sean "Diddy" Combs, arrives at Manhattan federal court, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Quincy Brown leaves Manhattan federal court after his father, Sean "Diddy" Combs, was ordered held without bail in his federal sex trafficking case, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

King Combs, center, leaves Manhattan federal court after his father, Sean "Diddy" Combs, was ordered held without bail in his federal sex trafficking case, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

FILE - Sean "Diddy" Combs arrives at the LA Premiere of "The Four: Battle For Stardom" at the CBS Radford Studio Center on May 30, 2018, in Los Angeles. (Photo by Willy Sanjuan/Invision/AP, File)

Justin Dior Combs, left, leaves Manhattan federal court after his father, Sean "Diddy" Combs, was ordered held without bail in his federal sex trafficking case, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

In this courtroom sketch, Sean Combs, center, is flanked by his defense attorney Marc Agnifilo, left, and Teny Garagos, in Manhattan Federal Court, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in New York. (Elizabeth Williams via AP)

From left, King Combs, Quincy Brown and Justin Dior Combs arrive at Manhattan federal court, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Marc Agnifilo, attorney for Sean "Diddy" Combs, arrives at Manhattan federal court, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Seth Wenig)

Marc Agnifilo, attorney for Sean "Diddy" Combs, speaks to the media outside Manhattan federal court after Combs was ordered held without bail in his federal sex trafficking case, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Eduardo Munoz Alvarez)

PHOTO COLLECTION: Sexual Misconduct Sean "Diddy" Combs

FILE - Music mogul and entrepreneur Sean "Diddy" Combs arrives at the Billboard Music Awards, May 15, 2022, in Las Vegas. (Photo by Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP, File)

PHOTO COLLECTION: Sexual Misconduct Sean "Diddy" Combs

Google confronts an existential threat Monday as the U.S. government tries to break up the company as punishment for turning its revolutionary search engine into a ruthless monopoly.

The drama will unfold in a Washington courtroom during the next three weeks during hearings that will determine how the company should be penalized for operating an illegal monopoly in search. In its opening arguments, federal antitrust enforcers also urged the court to impose forward-looking remedies to prevent Google from using the same strategies to build a monopoly around artificial intelligence.

“This is a moment in time, we’re at an inflection point, will we abandon the search market and surrender them to control of the monopolists or will we let competition prevail and give choice to future generations,” said Justice Department attorney David Dahlquist.

The U.S. Department of Justice is asking a federal judge to order a radical shake-up that would ban Google from striking the multibillion dollar deals with Apple and other tech companies that shield its search engine from competition, share its repository of valuable user data with rivals and force a sale of its popular Chrome browser.

The moment of reckoning comes four-and-half-years after the Justice Department filed a landmark lawsuit alleging Google’s search engine had been abusing its power as the internet's main gateway to stifle competition and innovation for more than a decade.

“This is a time for the court to tell Google, and all the other monopolists who are out there listening, and they are listening, that there are consequences when you break anti-trust laws,” Dahlquist said.

After the case finally went to trial in 2023, a federal judge last year ruled Google had been making anti-competitive deals to lock in its search engine as the go-to place for digital information on the iPhone, personal computers and other widely used devices, including those running on its own Android software.

That landmark ruling by U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta sets up a high-stakes drama that will determine the penalties for Google’s misconduct in a search market that it has defined since Larry Page and Sergey Brin founded the company in a Silicon Valley garage in 1998.

Since that austere start, Google has expanded far beyond search to become a powerhouse in email, digital mapping, online video, web browsing, smartphone software and data centers.

Seizing upon its victory in the search case, the Justice Department is now setting out to prove that radical steps must be taken to rein in Google and its corporate parent, Alphabet Inc.

“Google’s illegal conduct has created an economic goliath, one that wreaks havoc over the marketplace to ensure that — no matter what occurs — Google always wins,” the Justice Department argued in documents outlining its proposed penalties. “The American people thus are forced to accept the unbridled demands and shifting, ideological preferences of an economic leviathan in return for a search engine the public may enjoy.”

Although the proposed penalties were originally made under President Joe Biden's term, they are still being embraced by the Justice Department under President Donald Trump, whose first administration filed the case against Google. Since the change in administrations, the Justice Department has also attempted to cast Google's immense power as a threat to freedom, too.

“The American dream is about higher values than just cheap goods and ‘free’ online services," the Justice Department wrote in a March 7 filing with Mehta. “These values include freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom to innovate, and freedom to compete in a market undistorted by the controlling hand of a monopolist."

Google is arguing the government's proposed changes are unwarranted under a ruling that its search engine popularity among consumers is one of the main reasons it has become so dominant.

The “unprecedented array of proposed remedies would harm consumers and innovation, as well as future competition in search and search ads in addition to numerous other adjacent markets,” Google lawyers said in a filing leading up to hearings. “They bear little or no relationship to the conduct found anticompetitive, and are contrary to the law.”

Google also is sounding alarms about the proposed requirements to share online search data with rivals and the proposed sale of Chrome posing privacy and security risks. “The breadth and depth of the proposed remedies risks doing significant damage to a complex ecosystem. Some of the proposed remedies would imperil browser developers and jeopardize the digital security of millions of consumers."

The showdown over Google's fate marks the climax of the biggest antitrust case in the U.S. since the Justice Department sued Microsoft in the late 1990s for leveraging its Windows software for personal computers to crush potential rivals.

The Microsoft battle culminated in a federal judge declaring the company an illegal monopoly and ordering a partial breakup — a remedy that was eventually overturned by an appeals court.

Google intends to file an appeal of Mehta's ruling from last year that branded its search engine as an illegal monopoly but can't do so until the remedy hearings are completed. After closing arguments are presented in late May, Mehta intends to make his decision on the remedies before Labor Day.

The search case marked the first in a succession of antitrust cases that have been brought against a litany of tech giants that include Facebook and Instagram parent Meta Platforms, which is currently fighting allegations of running an illegal monopoly in social media in another Washington D.C. trial. Other antitrust cases have been brought against both Apple and Amazon, too.

The Justice Department also targeted Google's digital advertising network in a separate antitrust case that resulted last week in another federal judge's decision that found the company was abusing its power in that market, too. That ruling means Google will be heading into another remedy hearing that could once again raise the specter of a breakup later this year or early next year.

FILE - A woman walks by a giant screen with a logo at an event at the Paris Google Lab on the sidelines of the AI Action Summit in Paris, Sunday, Feb. 9, 2025. (AP Photo/Thibault Camus, File)

FILE - A man walks past Google's offices in London's Kings Cross area, on Aug. 10, 2024. (AP Photo/Brian Melley, File)