How big is too big? And when does a company become so big that the government is forced to step in and make it smaller? Politicians have been struggling with those questions for at least a hundred years. But as the latest generation of tech companies has taken shape, the questions are becoming more and more relevant to internet giants like Google and Facebook. There’s a new movement in Washington to break up those companies, whether through a Justice Department lawsuit or an old-school appeal to the Sherman Antitrust Act. It’s a struggle Microsoft fended off in the ‘90s, and it has only grown more urgent in the years since. As Amazon has taken a stranglehold of online retail, Jeff Bezos’ company has started to attract antitrust attention as well, with figures like Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Lina Khan taking aim at Amazon’s cutthroat competitive strategies. If it succeeds, it would be one of the most ambitious government projects in a generation — but success is still a long way off.
In a sealed order, a federal judge granted part of Amazon’s motion to dismiss, but gave the Federal Trade Commission a chance to re-file at least some of those charges by the end of the month. Like Google’s antitrust trials, the judge said this one will be split up into a liability and remedy phase, if the court finds for the FTC.
To wrap up its case, Google tried to fit it into a Supreme Court precedent that could undermine the government’s argument.
Closing arguments in their ad tech antitrust trial will start at 10AM that day. But for now, it’s a wrap.
The final day saw a couple of depositions from Google — including testimony from Ryan Pauley, chief revenue officer at Verge parent company Vox Media — plus a Daily Mail executive who returned in a short but heated DOJ rebuttal.
‘All roads lead back to Google,’ the government argued in the first two weeks of its ad tech antitrust trial.
Bloomberg reports that “a formal chargesheet” is being prepared by EU officials, taking issue with how it presents rivals on search services like Google Flights and Google Hotels.
Search is already under antitrust fire in the US, and those findings could lead to a big financial penalty under the DMA, although things could change before a final decision is due before April 2025.
I’ve been going to this extremely wonky and jargon-y trial almost every day, and I joined Decoder to translate the highlights so far. The trial — which is only accessible in-person from an Alexandria, VA courtroom — is in its second week. Google is expected to start calling witnesses any day now, once the Justice Department wraps its chief case.
In 2019, three years after the case began, the European Commission fined Google €1.5 billion after determining that it forced customers of its AdSense business to sign anticompetitive contracts. On appeal, the EU’s second highest court said it “upholds the majority of the findings” but annuls the fine. But don’t worry! The Commission can still appeal the decision ensuring another year or two of legal fees.
Karen Dunn, a partner at the law firm Paul Weiss, has been busy this week. It’s no wonder Virginia federal judge Leonie Brinkema told Dunn she could be on her way just after she opened Google’s defense against ad tech monopolization charges.
We’re moving through witnesses in the Google ad tech trial, including Stephanie Layser, a former consultant and News Corp advertising VP.
Layser bolstered the DOJ’s claim that Google Ad Manager (formerly Doubleclick For Publishers or DFP) dominates the market thanks to its links to AdX. “DFP is a 25 to 30 year old piece of technology. It’s slow and clunky,” Layser lamented. “It takes a long time to load on the page.”
The Virginia courthouse is a stickler about security, so I’m posting on behalf of Lauren Feiner, who sent the following this morning:
The government didn’t say who would be testifying before court adjourned yesterday, but we left off with several industry players explaining the publisher side of the market. Blissfully, the DOJ said we’re running ahead of schedule already. About to say goodbye to my phone, take my last sip of water (neither allowed in the courtroom!) and head back in.
The European Commission fined the search giant in 2017 for promoting its own shopping comparison listings over rivaling services. Now, the top European court has upheld the fine, leaving no further opportunities for Google to appeal.
Google said it had already adjusted its products to comply with the decision, and argues that its shopping approach has “worked successfully for more than seven years.”
Prosecutors for the US Department of Justice said in a hearing Friday that the DOJ will outline what Google should do to reverse its search monopoly status by December, reports Reuters.
Judge Amit Mehta is expected to hold hearings in the spring to determine the final remedy.
The Competition and Markets Authority announced the investigation after fans purchasing tickets for the Oasis reunion tour were met with unexpectedly high prices. The CMA will look into Ticketmaster’s dynamic pricing scheme, which adjusts ticket prices based on demand.
We must take on Big Pharma, Big Oil, Big Ag, Big Tech, and all the other corporate monopolists whose greed is denying progress for working people.
After Fubo filed an antitrust lawsuit against the trio for its upcoming Venu streaming service, Puck’s Eriq Gardner sat in on an evidentiary hearing overseen by NY District Judge Margaret Garnett:
From the several days of testimony I witnessed — packed with executives, consultants, and economists — it feels like a preliminary injunction might just be on the table... Garnett seems genuinely concerned by the extraordinary influence that could be wielded by an alliance of the sector’s behemoths.
The most likely targets to be spun out are Google’s Android mobile operating system or its Chrome browser, Bloomberg reports. DOJ’s antitrust chief Jonathan Kanter has long signaled he prefers structural remedies (legal speak for breakups) in many cases. Either way, Bloomberg says DOJ is likely to ask for a ban on exclusive contracts the judge found helped reinforce Google’s monopoly. A DOJ spokesperson said it’s evaluating the ruling and “No decisions have been made at this time.”
AAG Jonathan Kanter says the Google monopoly verdict belongs on the ‘Mount Rushmore of antitrust.’
