Google on Trial: Everything You Need to Know

Photo by Pawel Czerwinski on Unsplash  

How did you come across this article? Through our website? Newsletter? And how did you open this website or newsletter? If you're anything like me, you use Google. And if you've been keeping up with news, you would know of the DOJ’s antitrust lawsuit against
Google.

For the first time since 1997, the US Department of Justice will take a Big Tech company in an antitrust trial. This trial is the first in an upcoming sequence of antitrust lawsuits against dominant tech corporations such as Meta that the DOJ plans to undertake. The DOJ's case is based on the claim that Google illegally eliminates competition and ensures its prevalence as a search engine. In fact, about 90% of Americans' search engine of choice is Google simply because it seems to be the most available compared to other options like Bing or Yahoo. But is this truly the case?

Google has been accused of paying companies like Samsung and Apple to ensure that no rival company could gain a foothold in the market for online search. On September 12, 2023, the government attorneys presented their opening statement and argued that this trillion-dollar company has illegitimately been protecting its monopoly and harming its consumers. It is no secret that Google takes and uses data to improve its algorithms that attract more customers in a positive feedback loop. However, it is the default setting of Google as a search engine and the inability of customers to be able to uninstall Google applications that raises suspicion. 

The DOJ has a solid case and a history of coming out on top of such rulings, as seen through the Microsoft case in the late 1990s. The claims against Google and Meta represent a uniquely American industrial strategy. Many countries prefer to subsidize their tech monopolists, however the United States has demonstrated that weakening a monopolist's dominance can be a superior option. This also checks what is likely the least responsible sort of power in the United States, a capacity that sometimes feels like a threat to the concept of popular rule.

Finally, the most important function of antitrust law is to rebalance economic power, taming the excesses unavoidable in a capitalist market. The technology sectors are prone to monopoly, but history shows that they can be extremely creative with the appropriate nudge. The prosecution of Google is not intended to harm Google but rather to force it to make room for the next generation of technologists and their ideas.