In the first monopolistic test of the modern Internet era, the United States sets its sights on Google

The Justice Department has spent three years investigating two presidential administrations investigating Google’s illegal abuse of its power over online search to restrict competition. To protect itself, Google recruited hundreds of employees and three powerful law firms and spent millions of dollars in legal fees and lobbying.

On Tuesday, a judge in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia will begin considering their arguments in a trial that delves into the heart of a long-cherished question: Are the giants? Today’s tech giants have become dominant by breaking the law?

The case – US et al. v. Google — is the federal government’s first monopolistic experiment in the modern internet era, when a generation of technology companies has exerted enormous influence over commerce, information, public discourse, leisure and labor. The trial moved the antitrust battle against those companies to a new stage, moving from challenging their mergers and acquisitions to a deeper examination of the businesses that brought them to power.

Such a consequential lawsuit over tech power has not occurred since the Justice Department took Microsoft to court in 1998 for antitrust violations. But since then, companies like Google, Apple, Amazon, and Meta, which owns Facebook and Instagram, have crept into people’s lives to an even greater extent. Any ruling from the trial could have widespread effects, slowing down or potentially destroying the biggest internet companies after decades of uncontrolled growth.

The risk is especially big for Google, the Silicon Valley company founded in 1998 that has grown into a $1.7 trillion giant by being the first place people turn to search online. on the web. The government has said in the complaint that it wants Google to change its monopoly business, potentially compensate for damages, and restructure itself.

“This is an important case and precedent moment for these new platforms to create market power,” said Laura Phillips-Sawyer, who teaches antitrust law at the University of Georgia Law School. real and lasting”.

The case focuses on whether Google has illegally consolidated its dominance and crushed competition by paying Apple and other companies to make their internet search engine a default search on iPhone as well as on other devices and platforms.

In the legal filing, the Justice Department argued that Google maintained a monopoly through such arrangements, making it harder for consumers to use other search engines. Google says its agreements with Apple and others are not exclusive and that consumers can change the default settings on their devices to choose alternative search engines.

Google has amassed 90% of the search engine market in the United States and 91% globally, according to Sameweb, a data analytics company.

Fireworks are expected at the trial, which is expected to last 10 weeks. Google CEO Sundar Pichai, as well as executives from Apple and other tech companies are likely to be called as witnesses.

Judge Amit P. Mehta, appointed by President Barack Obama in 2014, is presiding over the trial, which will have no jury and he will issue a final verdict. Kenneth Dintzer, a 30-year veteran litigation attorney for the Department of Justice, will lead government arguments in the courtroom, while John E. Schmidtlein, a partner at law firm Williams & Connolly, will do the same thing for Google.

Competition in the trial was already very intense. The Justice Department and Google deported more than 150 people in the case and produced more than 5 million pages of documents. Google has argued that Jonathan Kanter, the head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division, is biased because of his previous work as a private attorney representing Microsoft and News Corp. The Justice Department has accused Google of destroying employee instant messages that may contain information relevant to the case.

Kent Walker, Google’s president of global affairs, said in an interview last month that the company’s tactics are “completely legal” and that its success “depends on the quality of the product.” our products”.

“It’s frustrating – maybe ironic – that we’re seeing this back-to-back case and truly unprecedented, forward-looking innovation,” he said.

The Justice Department declined to comment.

Google’s search engine was created by Sergey Brin and Larry Page when they were students at Stanford University in the 1990s. Their technology is widely praised for delivering more relevant results than other engines. Search other web sites. Google eventually capitalized on that success into new areas of business including online advertising, video streaming, maps, office applications, driverless cars, and artificial intelligence.

Competitors have long accused Google of using its power to find ways to block competitor links to travel, restaurant reviews and maps, and to give content more prominence. theirs. Those complaints have drawn scrutiny from regulators, although little action has been taken.

In 2019, under President Donald J. Trump, the Justice Department and Federal Trade Commission decided to launch new antitrust investigations into technology companies as part of a broader crackdown. cobble. The Justice Department has agreed to oversee investigations into Apple and Google.

In October 2020, the government sued Google for abusing its dominance in online search. In its lawsuit, the government accuses Google of hurting rivals like Microsoft’s Bing and DuckDuckGo by using agreements with Apple and other smartphone makers to become a search engine. default on their web browser or pre-installed on their device.

“Two decades ago, Google became Silicon Valley’s darling as a weak startup with an innovative way to search the emerging internet,” the Justice Department said in the lawsuit. . “That Google is long gone.”

The agency said Google’s actions have harmed consumers and stifle competition, and could affect the future tech landscape as the company positions itself to control “theirs.” emerging channels” for search distribution. The agency added that Google behaved similarly to Microsoft in the 1990s, when the software giant made its own web browser the default on the Windows operating system, crushing competitors.

The group of 35 states, Guam, Puerto Rico, and the District of Columbia also filed lawsuits in 2020 alleging Google abused its search monopoly and search advertising to illegally exclude competitors. That case will be heard alongside the Justice Department case, though Judge Mehta dismissed many of the states’ key arguments in his ruling last month.

In January, the Justice Department filed a separate antitrust lawsuit against Google, accusing it of abusing its monopoly power in ad technology. The company faces two other lawsuits from states alleging it abused its monopoly in ad technology and prevented competition in the Google Play app store. Google and the states said in a court filing Tuesday night that they had reached “agreement in principle” to settle the case.

For decades, judges have often ruled against companies in antitrust cases when their behavior harmed consumers, especially if they raised prices. Critics have said that allows companies like Google – which offers a free Internet search service – out of trouble.

Google’s Mr. Walker said the case was time for the court to double down on that standard.

“America’s law should be in the interests of consumers,” he said, adding: “If we remove that and make it more difficult for companies to provide goods and services, great service to consumers, that would be bad for everyone.”

Proprietary testing can change the direction of industries. In 1984, under pressure from the Justice Department, AT&T split itself into seven regional telecommunications companies. The breakup transformed the telecommunications industry by making it more competitive at the dawn of the mobile phone era.

But the impact of the government’s antitrust war with Microsoft in the early 2000s is unclear. The two sides eventually settled after Microsoft agreed to terminate some contracts with PC makers that had barred rival software makers.

Some tech executives said the Justice Department’s action made Microsoft more cautious, clearing the way for startups like Google to compete in the next era of computing. Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft, has blamed the echo of the antitrust lawsuit for the company’s slow penetration into mobile technology and the failure of Windows phones. But others argue that the deal does not increase competition.

Ultimately, the Google trial will examine whether antitrust laws written in 1890 to break up the sugar, steel and railroad monopoly are still in force in today’s economy, Rebecca Allensworth , a professor at Vanderbilt University’s law school, said.

“The Google trial is a major test of the government’s entire antitrust agenda because its theory of monopolies is so relevant to many big tech companies,” she said.