> It means exactly that: it has near-monopoly on search. On mobile the situation is close to to complete monopoly.
Would you say HackerNews is a monopoly? Any activity that the user has a choice to use something else cannot be a monopoly.
> Google literally pays Apple $20 billion a year to force people to use Google only
Apple pays TSMC $XXX billion dollars to get preferential treatment, but that doesnt make TSMC a monopoly or even Apple a monopoly.
Just because you can use minor players does not mean Google isn't a near-monopoly.
By all accounts Google Search is 85-90% of global search engine market share.
Chrome is "only" 70%.
Edit For anti-competitive purposes and anti-trust regulations the main word is market dominance.