The Justice Department’s landmark antitrust case against Google I started in court todaymarking the beginning of an experiment that will span several months, potentially turning the world of technology upside down in the process.
The issue at hand is the workings of Google search. The Justice Department says Google violated antitrust laws in the context of maintaining its top spot in search, while the tech giant says it maintains its dominance naturally by offering a superior product to consumers.
The Justice Department filed a civil antitrust lawsuit against Google in late 2020 after examining the company’s business for more than a year.
“If the government does not enforce antitrust laws to enable competition, we will lose out on the next wave of innovation,” said Deputy Attorney General Jeffrey Rosen. on time. If that happens, Americans may never see “the next Google.”
A large coalition of state attorneys general also filed a parallel suit against Google, but Judge Amit Mehta ruled that the states… The tape was not erased That would allow them to go to court with their own complaints about Google’s search ranking practices.
The current case against Google, which centers around its search business, is separate from another federal antitrust lawsuit filed earlier this year. In this lawsuit, the Justice Department says Google used “anticompetitive, exclusionary, and illegal means” to neutralize threats to its digital advertising empire.
On Tuesday, Justice Department attorney Kenneth Dentzer set the stakes for the trial, the first major antitrust trial in technology since Microsoft’s historic reckoning in the late 1990s. “This issue is about the future of the Internet, and whether Google will ever face real competition,” Dentzer said.
At the start of the trial, the government focused its attention on Google’s deals with phone makers — most notably Apple — that give its search product the highest cost on new devices. Dentzer said that by paying $10 billion annually for these arrangements, Google can maintain and even expand its position as the best search engine.
“This feedback loop, this wheel, has been turning for over 12 years,” he said. “And it always turns out in Google’s favor.”
Google’s lawyer, John Schmidtlin, disputed that characterization, hinting at an argument we’ll likely see the company make in the coming weeks.
“Users today have more search options and ways to access information online than ever before,” Schmidtlin said. He pointed to traditional competitors like Microsoft’s Bing search engine, but also a wide range of searchable Internet services, including Amazon, Expedia and DoorDash, which Google will argue are competing with it.
Google has previously planted the seeds of the same line of defense. Last year, Google senior vice president Prabhakar Raghavan said that more young people were turning to TikTok to search for information rather than Google search, citing internal research.
“In our studies, about 40% of young people, when they’re looking for a place to eat lunch, don’t go to Google Maps or search,” Raghavan said. “They go on TikTok or Instagram.”
In the coming months, Google’s fate will be decided by US District Judge Amit Mehta rather than a jury. We’re a long way from that decision, but the company could face huge fines or even be ordered to sell off parts of its existing business.
If the Justice Department wins, the trial could reshape the future of Google’s digital empire. But other technology companies that have grown to dominate online markets in the past decade are watching closely, too. If the government attempts to hold the iconic Silicon Valley giant accountable, Big Tech will likely continue on its aggressive growth path, unhindered.
If the Justice Department approves this landing, the next decade could be very different from what we have seen before. The signals of this industry-wide reckoning could disrupt incumbents and open up market space for startups to define the next era of the Internet, wresting the future from the grip of entrenched tech giants.