uA quarter of a century after trying to dismantle Microsoft, American antitrust is attacking Google, the gateway to the Internet thanks to its search engine. The trial opens in Washington on Tuesday September 12. It could mark the peak of the offensive against Big Tech, launched under Donald Trump and continued by Joe Biden.
Google processes about 90% of the world’s search engine queries, and the Department of Justice (DOJ) accuses it of maintaining its monopoly “through exclusionary distribution agreements” which make Google the default search engine on Apple’s Safari browser and Mozilla’s Firefox browser. The same kind of argument was made against Microsoft, which used exclusivity contracts to promote Internet Explorer and eliminate Netscape.
A major trial therefore, and, yet, no one really believes in its capacity to change the situation. First, the stock market, as evidenced by the rebound of Alphabet, the parent company of Google, which has gained more than 50% since the start of the year. Then there is this decision by the judge presiding over the trial, Amit Mehta, who dismissed the lawsuits filed jointly by thirty-eight federal states, Republicans and Democrats, on Google’s advertising practices and focused the case on the search engine alone. . Finally, there is the series of failures suffered by the federal government, unable to convince judges to sanction Big Tech.
“Zero against four”
This latter policy is embodied by Lina Khan, president of the Federal Trade Commission, who shares responsibility with the DOJ for implement antitrust policy by Joe Biden. This 34-year-old young woman made herself known in 2017 with an article explaining that it is not because Amazon kept prices low for consumers that it did not abuse its position to the detriment of other listed sellers. on its platform. Once appointed, she increased the antitrust attacks, accentuating the anti-tech backlash that began under Donald Trump. A crusade which ended in emblematic failures. “Your score is zero to four in your anti-merger cases. Why are you losing so much? »quipped California Republican Representative Kevin Kiley in a Congressional hearing in July.
Indeed, Mme Khan lost to Microsoft, which she wanted to prevent from acquiring online gaming specialist Activision for $70 billion. The judge ruled that she had not proven that the takeover would reduce competition and penalize the consumer. Lesson to be learned, judges do not like to sanction vertical integrations. Already, under Donald Trump, antitrust had failed to block the takeover of Time Warner by the telephone operator AT&T. Which did not prevent the operation from turning into a disaster.
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