The Antitrust Lawsuit Against Google Has Been Filed
upstart writes in with an IRC submission for SoyCow1188:
U.S. Accuses Google of Illegally Protecting Monopoly:
The Justice Department accused Google of maintaining an illegal monopoly over search and search advertising in a lawsuit filed on Tuesday, the government's most significant legal challenge to a tech company's market power in a generation.
In its suit, filed in a federal court in Washington, D.C., the agency accused Google, a unit of Alphabet, of illegally maintaining its monopoly over search through several exclusive business contracts and agreements that lock out competition.
Such contracts include Google's payment of billions of dollars to Apple to place the Google search engine as the default for iPhones. By using contracts to maintain its monopoly, competition and innovation has suffered, the suit says.
[...] The lawsuit may stretch on for years and could set off a cascade of other antitrust lawsuits from state attorneys general. About four dozen states and jurisdictions have conducted parallel investigations and are expected to bring separate complaints against the company's grip on technology for online advertising.
A victory for the government could remake one of America's most recognizable companies and the internet economy that it has helped define since it was founded by two Stanford University graduate students in 1998.
But Google has long denied accusations of antitrust violations and is expected to fight the government's efforts by using a global network of lawyers, economists and lobbyists. Alphabet, valued at $1.04 trillion and with cash reserves of $120 billion, has fought similar antitrust lawsuits in Europe.
The company says it has strong competition in the search market, with more people finding information on sites like Amazon. It says its services have been a boon for small businesses.
Google didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Read more of this story at SoylentNews.