Three Key Questions in the Google Antitrust Case
Last Tuesday, the Department of Justice (DOJ) kicked off its first major monopolization trial since the Microsoft case of the late 1990s. The target this time is a Microsoft rival: Google. Google’s ubiquitous search engine competes with Microsoft’s Bing, which powers search engines Yahoo and DuckDuckGo.
Filed in the waning days of the Trump administration, the government’s lawsuit alleges that Google has cemented its monopoly power in general internet search and related search advertising by paying to be the default search engine on various “search access points.” Specifically, Google secures default status by agreeing to share search advertising revenue with web browsers like Mozilla’s Firefox, producers of Android phones and the carriers who service them, and iPhone maker Apple. In the government’s telling, these deals prevent Google’s search rivals from achieving the scale they need to become formidable competitors.