Ranking the Big Tech Monopolization Cases in the Wake of the Google Search Decision: Perspectives of Some Economists and Legal Scholars
In April, we published a short piece in Notice & Comment on 5 key monopolization cases in the tech sector. In it, we presented the results of an informal poll of economists with expertise in antitrust. The poll asked them to rate the strength of the government’s cases by providing both stand-alone ratings and relative ones. Here, we present the results of a follow-up poll in the wake of Judge Amit Mehta’s decision in the Google search case. Judge Mehta’s decision is that of a federal district court and, hence, a fact on the ground; it is also, in our view, a substantial and largely thoughtful one—which is not to say that we agree with its findings of liability. For those reasons, we thought it worth asking whether the decision had changed any minds about the cases.
The short story is this: plus ça change, plus pretty darn similar. Reported views vary across both respondents and cases but, on average, our respondents do not think that the government has brought very strong cases.