Today, in a landmark decision on U.S. v. Google, the D.C. District Court held that Google violated Section 2 of the Sherman Act for its anticompetitive conduct in the general search and general search text advertising markets. The U.S. Department of Justice previously filed this antitrust suit against Google, claiming that the company had monopolized the search engine market as well as the market for general search advertising. The suit followed our recent letters urging the Justice Department to review Google’s conduct for anticompetitive behavior in the search and advertising technology markets.
The following can be attributed to Elise Phillips, Policy Counsel at Public Knowledge:
“Public Knowledge is thrilled that Judge Amit Mehta has sided with the U.S. government that Google’s chokehold on the search and search text advertising market is anticompetitive and unacceptable. For too long, Google has abused its market power to lock in consumers to its search engine and foreclosed key distribution channels to competitors.
“As Judge Mehta’s decision skillfully outlines, Google’s exclusive agreements with Apple to be the default search engine, and with Android to lock users into using Google search, deprive competitors the opportunity to scale their own businesses while disincentivizing Google from truly innovating. Likewise, Google’s dominance in text advertising allowed Google to freely ramp up text ad prices to boost its own profits, resulting in poorer quality ads and limiting the competition’s ability to attract revenue and ad dollars.
“While the remedy phase is still pending, this decision sets the stage to ensure that Google operates on a level playing field, creating an environment for healthier market competition and innovation that responds to the competitive pressure of rivals and consumer needs. Hopefully, this decision will be the tipping point to check anticompetitive behavior of all dominant digital platforms.”
You may view our blog post series on the trial for more information.
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