Antitrust lawsuit against Google

It is going to be a tough case, I would suspect, because of the complexity. They might be able to make a claim of monopolies in paid search and display/banner advertising. They also have a heavy presence, but not a monopolist position, in the Mobile market. Their presence in the video market is borderline monopoly, but other major players have been trying to carve out space. They have been unsuccessful in making in-roads into social outside of Youtube/video advertising. And they haven't made big in-roads into audio advertising.

So, like a lot of these cases, it may come down to how narrowly defined the market can be. If you define the market as "digital advertising," I suspect they would lose. If they can get the market defined as paid search and/or display advertising, then maybe the DOJ has a chance here.

The second issue is that I am not sure that companies that do a lot of paid search advertising terribly want the DOJ to win this one, as the existence of one system makes it easier to engage in things like paid search. If they need to have people who know multiple systems, this wouldn't necessarily be great for those companies, who are the customers in this case.

 

this is going to leave a mark...what happens now?

time to short google?

Federal judge rules Google violates antitrust law in search (thehill.com)

A federal judge ruled Monday that Google maintains a monopoly over online search and advertising in violation of antitrust law in a landmark decision. “After having carefully considered and weighed the witness testimony and evidence, the court reaches the following conclusion: Google is a monopolist, and it has acted as one to maintain its monopoly,” the opinion from U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta reads.

The ruling largely sides with the Justice Department and the coalition of state attorneys general who sued Google in 2020, finding that the tech giant has monopoly power in general search services and general search text ads.

Mehta found that Google unlawfully maintains its monopoly in these two markets through exclusive agreements with partners, like Apple, that ensure it is the default search engine on their devices.

About half of all queries in the U.S. run through default search access points covered by these agreements, which the judge noted forecloses a significant portion of the online search market.

 

How Google's huge defeat in antitrust case could change how you search the internet (msn.com)

In the most significant legal ruling against a major technology giant in more than two decades, a federal judge says Google illegally monopolized online search and advertising by paying companies like Apple and Samsung billions of dollars a year to install Google as the default search engine on smartphones and web browsers.

The massive win for the Justice Department could fundamentally reshape how Google does business. It also could change how we use the internet and search for information.

The Justice Department filed antitrust charges during the final weeks of the Trump administration, making good on Donald Trump’s pledge to challenge the runaway power of Big Tech. That mission continued during the Biden administration, which has been aggressive in pursuing antitrust cases.