Will Google's Monopoly Be Vanquished?
The path includes appeals challenges, a judicially ordered remedy phase, and a change in the presidency.
BY LUKE GOLDSTEIN AUGUST 9, 2024
This week, federal district court judge Amit Mehta delivered a landmark decision finding that Google holds an illegal monopoly over the search market, in violation of the Sherman Act. It’s a massive victory for the Department of Justice’s multiyear legal battle in the first major monopolization trial in over 25 years. More broadly, the decision affirms that the movement to rein in corporate concentration in the tech sector and across the economy has legs to stand on in court.
Judge Mehta effectively deemed Google’s illegal monopoly to be a function of an exclusive anti-competitive arrangement with Apple and other browser and mobile device companies, exchanging search engine default status for a mountain of money in revenue sharing ($26.3 billion in 2021). In so doing, Mehta tore up the secret master contract that had been choking the internet for decades, stifling commercial innovation and enshittifying the consumer experience.
Winning this case is only the first front in the battle, however. Google has already appealed the decision. If it is upheld, it will enter the remedy stage where there are a range of potential outcomes: some good, some bad. And a change in power in the executive branch will take place well before we get a final decision.
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The Justice Department was able to win the lawsuit by beating Chicago school proponents at their own game, while also returning the battle to the original intention of the Sherman Act, which is focused on competition. They diminished the consumer welfare standard back to being just a made-up principle, conjured up by economists in the 1970s, that began to hold sway in court.
https://prospect.org/justice/2024-08-09-will-googles-monopoly-be-vanquished/