America's biggest challenge yet to the enormous power of today's big technology companies is reaching its climax.
On Thursday and Friday, lawyers for the Justice Department, state attorneys general and Google are scheduled to make closing arguments in the year-long lawsuit. v. Google — over whether the tech giant violated federal antitrust laws to maintain its dominance in online search.
The government alleges that Google engaged in unfair competition when it paid Apple and other companies billions of dollars to automatically process searches on smartphones and web browsers. Google insists that consumers use its search engine because it is the best product.
In the coming weeks and months, Judge Amit P. Mehta, who oversaw the case in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, will decide whether to change the way Google operates, break up the company, or even immunize it. It will give a possible verdict. A complete technology giant. Many antitrust experts expect him to land somewhere in the middle, finding only some of Google's tactics to be over the top.
The case is the biggest challenge yet to the enormous power of today's giant technology companies, which have defined an era in which billions of people around the world rely on their products for information, social interaction, and commerce. It is. U.S. regulators have accused Apple, Amazon and Meta of monopolistic practices in recent years, and Google's case is likely to set a legal precedent for the groups.
“This is the most important decision and probably the most important antitrust case of the 21st century,” said Rebecca Ho Allensworth, a professor at Vanderbilt Law School who studies antitrust law. “This is the first time a major monopoly case against a major technology platform has gone to trial, so it is a bellwether.”
The Justice Department declined to comment. A Google spokesperson echoed an earlier statement by one of the company's executives that the evidence in the trial supported that people “use Google because it has many choices and is helpful when searching for information online.” It pointed out.
At the heart of the case is Google's dominance in online search, which generates billions of dollars a year in profits. The Justice Department says nearly 90 percent of web searches are performed by Google's search engine.
According to information presented in court, the company spent $26.3 billion in 2021 alone to become the default search engine for browsers like Apple's Safari and Mozilla's Firefox, which is automatically available to users from the start. means that it is selected. The New York Times reported that Apple's share was about $18 billion.
When the Justice Department sued Google in 2020, it argued that these contracts were designed to protect its search monopoly and undermine the ability of other companies, such as Microsoft and DuckDuckGo, to compete.
Months after the federal lawsuit was filed, a group of state attorneys general made similar claims in their own antitrust lawsuit against Google over its search business. Judge Mehta heard the case together over 10 weeks last fall.
Lawyers questioned experts and executives, including Google CEO Sundar Pichai and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
Nadella said rival dominance has turned the internet into “Google's Web” and said he worries about a future in which Google uses similar tactics to dominate the burgeoning field of artificial intelligence.
“Despite my enthusiasm that there are new angles to AI, I'm very concerned that this cycle that we're in will get even worse,” Nadella testified.
Google's Pichai later testified that Google has created a better experience for consumers on the web through products such as the Chrome web browser, which uses Google as a search engine.
After closing arguments, Judge Mehta will decide whether Google has exclusive authority over the two products at issue in the case: its general search engine and the ads that appear in search results. need to be determined. To do so, he may look at Google's overall share of the market and whether its influence over search could be disrupted by competitors.
If Judge Mehta determines that Google has monopoly power, he will then decide whether the company violated the law by entering into a deal to protect its market share by becoming the default search engine on smartphones and web browsers. It turns out.
Legal experts say he could issue a mixed verdict, throwing out some of the government's claims while ruling that some of the contracts and policies uncovered in the trial do violate the law. It is said that there is a high possibility that the
If a judge rules against Google in any way, it will also ultimately have to decide how to remedy its misconduct, forcing the company to terminate its default search engine agreements with companies like Apple, for example. It may also be possible to give instructions. At this stage in the trial, both Google and the government may have an opportunity to present their arguments to Judge Mehta on how best to address the issues identified in the lawsuit.
Judges may also look to the European Union. In the European Union, Google in 2019 offered smartphone users the ability to choose a default search engine to comply with a previous antitrust ruling by regulators against the company. In theory, it gives smaller search companies more of a chance to compete with Google, but many rivals complain that it doesn't work.
The government has not yet said what it might seek if the judge rules in its favor, but it could ask Judge Mehta to make structural changes to Google's operations. . For example, separating out departments that help capture search queries for things like Chrome. browser. Experts say it's an even more surprising option.
“I don't think the Justice Department is likely to seek any kind of break here,” said Bill Baer, former head of the Justice Department's antitrust division. “It is likely that some restrictions will be placed on Google's actions in the future.”
In the late 1990s, the Justice Department launched a long-running antitrust challenge to Microsoft's dominance, accusing Microsoft of using its power over the operating system to lock out some of the earliest Web browsers. The company ultimately settled with the government, agreeing to give computer manufacturers more options for installing non-Microsoft software. The legal standards set in this case were referenced numerous times throughout the Google case.
Now, Judge Mehta could similarly shape broader regulatory efforts to rein in the tech industry and its tactics.
Baer said the ruling could help delineate what actions are fair game for companies that operate valuable and thriving platforms and want to protect that advantage. He said that there is a sex. That doesn't just apply to Google's search engine. Apple's App Store, Amazon's Marketplace, and Meta's many social networks are all platforms that face many of the same antitrust issues.
“The facts are somewhat different,” Baer said. “But there is much commonality in terms of when your actions intended to eliminate a rival amount to an unlawful effort to maintain a monopolistic position.”