Google has just lost a great antitrust case. A federal judge in Virginia ruled on Thursday that the search giant Illegally maintained a monopoly In the online advertising market, taking advantage of its position to earn more money and competition from Squash. The Department of Justice, which initiated the case together with several states, has requested Google to break.
For Google, and possibly a great technology as a whole, the moment of this news could not be worse.
Now we are years in the The Government War against large technology companies That covers the administrations Biden and Trump, and finally important battles are being decided. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has just spent three days at the stage In a case that will decide whether the acquisitions of finishing applications such as Instagram and WhatsApp violated antitrust laws. In August, Google lost another great antitrust case, when another judge ruled that it is Illegally maintained a monopoly on the search And look for advertising, recommendation that Google turns to your Chrome browser. (He Remedy phase of that case Actually begins on Monday). The Federal Commerce Commission (FTC) and 17 states He sued Amazon on his online market monopoly And will go to trial next year. And then it is Apple, which is Wrapped in an antitrust case Or his, his third in the last 15 years.
“The court confirmed that Google used its monopoly power … to block editors and exclusive competence in advertising exchanges, violating the antimonopoly law and putting our digital markets and information environment under the control of Google,” said Barry Lynn, mentally. “That is illegal monopolization, simply and plain.”
Containing Big Tech to take into account is a bipartisan problem. The case that Google lost last year was initially presented by the first Trump administration in 2020, and after the Biden administration Duplicate with the antitrust applicationTrump’s second administration shows no setbacks. Vice President JD Vance has been A vocal opponent or power without control of Big Tech and expressed support for Lina Khanthat grew to fame for Calling Amazon antitrust violations and served as president of the FTC in the Biden administration. Trump said he intends to face Big Tech replacing Khan with another HALCÓN ANTIMONOPOLIO, ANDREW FERGUSON.
Google suffering consecutive losses in court seems to be a turning point.
Reink in Big Tech is also a popular idea. About 59 percent of Americans were in Please break the great technology Companies, according to a 2021 survey for Vox and data for progress. And that survey was conducted before revelations by French Haugen complainant That Facebook knew that their products were damaging the children, and before Google was accused of Use of AI bots to steal data Of millions of users without their consent. A 2024 PEW Research Center survey found that most Americans think Social network companies have too much power About politics and society, and half think that the government should regulate them more.
Google suffering consecutive losses in court seems to be a turning point.
“We are reaching a moment of integrity crisis,” said Davi Ottenheimer, vice president of trust and digital ethics in the Data Privacy Company. “And that is what we have to obtain a movement in the United States.
On the other hand, if we have learned some decades of antitrust application in the United States, this is Break large companies – Speaking large technology companies – it’s difficult. Microsoft Avoid a break After losing a historical antitrust case in 1998 about its grouping or Internet Explorer in Windows. The remedies of that ruling never increased competition in the navigator space and once helped to pave the way for Google Chrome, which is now a main character in Google’s antimonopoolio drama.
The result of other important antitrust cases in the past has the technological companies that are established or paid for large fines, which they can pay. For example, a decade ago, Apple solves an antitrust case Collapse with editors to fix the prices of electronic books and finally paid $ 450 million as part of an agreement. Google lost three main antitrust cases in the European Union At the end of the 2010 and paid around $ 9.5 billion in fines. And yet, Google remains intact.
We still don’t know how they will go to Google, Meta, Amazon and Apple. We know that some of the Whoflew technology CEO A Mar-A-Lago Kiss the ring, who He gave millions to the Trump campaign and inaugurationand who He praised the president in Joe Rogan’s program They are probable getting nervous.
Nor do we know if Trump will stop these demands if he decides that this is what he hears. Zuckerberg, who has spent millions courting Trump In recent months, I would probably love this option. Ferguson, the president of the FTC, recently told The Verge that he would. “Obey legal orders“If Trump asks but” I would be very surprised if it ever happened like that. “
