The full story of the US Department of Justice’s crisis with...

The United States has filed a lawsuit against Google, accusing the trillion-dollar company of illegally using its market muscles to disrupt competitors in the biggest challenge to the power and influence of major tech companies in decades, as a lawsuit filed by the Department of Justice could lead to the disintegration of a creative company that has almost become Synonymous with the Internet, it has assumed a central role in the daily lives of billions of people around the world, according to India’s TOI website.

However, such an outcome is far from certain, and the case is likely to take years to resolve, as the lawsuit marks the first time that the United States has cracked down on a major tech company since it filed a lawsuit against Microsoft Corp for its anti-competitive practices. In 1998.

The settlement left the company intact, despite previous government intervention in the antitrust antitrust of major tech companies – a 1974 case against AT&T – which led to the disintegration of the Bell system, while 11 states joined the federal government’s complaint against Alphabet Inc, which alleges that Google acted Illegally to maintain its position in Internet search and search ads.

The lawsuit states that “in the absence of a court order, Google will continue to implement its anti-competitive strategy, impede the competitive process, reduce consumer choice, and stifle innovation.” The government said Google has nearly 90% of all public search engine inquiries in the United States. About 95% of searches are on mobile.

Attorney General Bill Barr said his investigators found that Google was not competing for the quality of its search results, but instead bought its success through payments to cell phone manufacturers and others. “The end result is that no one can practically challenge the dominance of the cell phone,” Barr said. Google in search and advertising on the search network. “

When asked on a conference call whether the ministry is seeking separation or some other treatment, Ryan Shores, the Justice Department official said, “Nothing is not on the table, but it is better for the court to address the issue of solutions after they have had the opportunity to hear all the evidence.” And the Justice Department said in its complaint that Americans were harmed by Google’s actions.

In her “request for relief” she said that she seeks “structural relief as needed to remedy any anti-competitive harm”. “Structural compensation” in antitrust matters in general means selling the asset, while the lawsuit states that “it is in the end consumers and advertisers who suffer.” From fewer options, less innovation and less competitive advertising rates, we are asking the court to break Google’s grip on distributing searches so that competition and innovation can take hold. “

Google responded

For its part, Google said that people “use Google because they chose it – not because they are forced to or because they cannot find alternatives,” while it seemed that investors ignored the news of the lawsuit, which led Alphabet’s shares to rise 1.9% to $ 1,563.51 yesterday afternoon. Tuesday.

Kent Walker, Google’s vice president for global affairs, described the historical issue as a public statement, and said it was “deeply flawed,” but since the importance of the issue became apparent to many employees, company executives spoke about the issue internally as well, according to the emails he saw It has Business Insider on it.

On Tuesday, Walker sent an email to staff with a summary of his public statement along with some additional comments, writing: “While we can expect some severe criticism and even misleading claims about our work, it is important not to be distracted by the process, including speculation on issues. Legal internally or externally. “

This was followed by an email from Google CEO Sundar Pichai, who told employees that auditing was not new to Google, confirming that they were looking forward to presenting their case.

“The Google employees asked me how they could help,” Pichai wrote, “My answer is simple. Keep doing what you do. The best way we can help the company at times like these is to stay focused too much on our mission.”

He then praised Google’s work during the COVID-19 pandemic and touched on developments in AI and research.

“It’s like closing the proverbial door after the horse pulls out,” said Neil Kampling, head of technology media and communications research at Mirabod Securities in London, adding that Google has already invested billions of dollars in infrastructure, technologies and talent. Of remarkable progress. ”

The political component

Tuesday’s federal lawsuit represents a rare moment of agreement between the Trump administration and the progressive Democrats, as US Senator Elizabeth Warren tweeted on September 10, using the hashtag #BreakUpBigTech, that she wanted “quick and violent action”, however, just days before the US presidential election. The timing of the registration can be viewed as a political gesture because it fulfills a promise made by President Donald Trump to his supporters to hold certain companies accountable for allegedly stifling conservative voices.

Republicans often complain that social media companies, including Google, are taking measures to limit the spread of conservative views on their platforms, and lawmakers have sought, without clarification, how to use antitrust laws to force major tech companies to stop these alleged restrictions.

The complaint referred to billions of dollars that Google is paying smartphone makers like Apple Inc, Samsung, and others to make the default Google search engine on their devices, and the complaint said that this means that competing search engines never get the scale they need to improve their algorithms and grow.

“Public search services, search ads, and public search text advertising require complex algorithms that continually learn organic results and ads that better respond to user inquiries,” the government said in its complaint. “By using distribution agreements to lock up the domain for itself and deny it to others, Google illegally maintains its monopolies.”

While Google has succeeded in protecting its profits derived from the Android operating system for mobile devices, which is officially open source, companies that change it are prohibited from profit-sharing agreements, and Ministry of Justice investigators have found an internal analysis of Google in which the strict agreements determined that only 1% of the proceeds Google searches on Android all over the world are in danger of losing it to competitors.

The complaint found, “This analysis indicated that the growth in Google search ad revenue from Android distribution was driven by increased platform protection efforts and agreements.”

Other challenges

All 11 states that have joined the lawsuit have Republican prosecutors, and there may be more lawsuits in the near future given that state prosecutors’ investigations into the broader Google business are underway, as well as an investigation into the broader digital advertising business. .

Prosecutors led by Texas are expected to file a separate lawsuit focusing on digital advertising as soon as possible in November, while a Colorado-led group is considering filing a broader lawsuit against Google, while the lawsuit comes more than a year after the Justice Department and the Federal Trade Commission began. Antitrust investigations of four major technology companies: Amazon.com Inc, Apple, Facebook Inc, and Google.

Seven years ago, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) settled a Google antitrust investigation into alleged bias in the search function in favor of its products, among other things. The settlement came after objections from some FTC employees’ attorneys, and Google faced similar legal challenges abroad.

Where the European Union imposed a fine of $ 1.7 billion on Google in 2019 for preventing websites from using Google’s competitors to find advertisers, $ 2.6 billion in 2017 to favor their shopping business in search, and $ 4.9 billion in 2018 to block Competitors for its Android wireless operating system.