The justice department has accused Google of using its market power to unfairly lock out rivals and position itself as a gatekeeper of the web. The case marks the first brought by the government against Google to go to trial. The justice department has also joined a separate case against Google brought by the attorneys general of 38 states and territories over monopoly concerns in advertising.
Google has denied wrongdoing in both cases and did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The justice department did not immediately comment.
In filings unsealed last month, Judge Amit P Mehta tossed out a handful of charges brought against Google, narrowing the case in a slight victory for the company. He said Google was not required to defend itself against charges that the design of its search results page has harmed rivals such as Expedia or Yelp.
Still, Mehta allowed some of the more significant charges to proceed, including key arguments that Google’s exclusive contracts with phone manufacturers allegedly harmed competitors. The department alleges the company pays billions each year to “secure default status for its general search engine and, in many cases, to specifically prohibit Google’s counterparties from dealing with Google’s competitors”.
How much you guys wanna bet this goes nowhere but a few fines?
All I’ve been seeing lately is news about possible actions against this big corporations, while they keep rolling out questionable stuff like nothing is happening.
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Wouldn’t say so. The people that care are the kind of people they would want to work for them otherwise in many cases. Techies, CS people.
Yea google already knows. Its just few millions, cost of doing business.
It’s still a step in the right direction, and the justice department better get used to it because there’s a LOT of corporations that need taken down a peg
What do you mean? A fine equivalent to 0.001% of their profit is going to cripple them! They might have to fire more staff just to stay afloat. Poor Google.
Gatekeep and track everything. Pay the pennies to the law and keep raking in the profits.
im cautiously optimistic. Ive read that anti-trust is starting to bounce back in general. Maybe we aren’t at the degree of Trust Busting from 100 years ago, but there is a chance we could see that in the next decade.
Absolutely, I want some old school trust busting. We need it badly
Going after Google search now, as it’s losing relevance, seems rather impotent. We’re on the verge of a new generation of companies that can fuck with industry and society with ai. Maybe just get a jump on that instead.
But also it would be nice to see google, or any big tech, take a hit for once.
Sometimes, and I don’t know if that’s possible here, it’s best to go after the current thing on its way out than to try to attack a brand new thing that is gaining influence.
Depends on how specific the scope is, and whether this will set precedent for future issues.
So they’ve been doing this for better than 20 years. All that is going to happen, is they’ll be fined. That money will disappear into the pockets of the lawmakers and nothing will change.
Maybe they’ll be brought up again in a few years when another pack of goons need more cash to pretend like they’re regulating anything in favor of the people.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The trial in a landmark antitrust case against Google is scheduled to start on Tuesday in Washington district court over charges of monopolizing the online search space.
The suit, filed by the US justice department in 2020, represents the biggest legal challenge to the power and influence of big tech in decades, and could be a bellwether in the fight against the industry’s monopolies.
The justice department has also joined a separate case against Google brought by the attorneys general of 38 states and territories over monopoly concerns in advertising.
In filings unsealed last month, Judge Amit P Mehta tossed out a handful of charges brought against Google, narrowing the case in a slight victory for the company.
Still, Mehta allowed some of the more significant charges to proceed, including key arguments that Google’s exclusive contracts with phone manufacturers allegedly harmed competitors.
While big tech has remained largely unscathed over the past few decades of unfettered success, lawsuits including these against Google could mark a changing of the tides.
The original article contains 557 words, the summary contains 169 words. Saved 70%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
Those a-holes finally started blocking ad blockers on YouTube. I wasn’t sure when it was gonna happen, but it happened today for me.
Either I only use channels that are ad free or uBlock Origin is still blocking ads for me.
What blocker are you using?
Ad blocker ultimate, on Firefox. What should I be using?
uBlock Origin on Firefox has been the best one I have ever used.
Okay, I’ll keep that in mind. Does it prevent the “no ad blockers” warning from popping up on YouTube?
I have not seen an ad or warning about ad blockers on YouTube in years since I started using it.
To be clear it is uBlock Origin. Not “uBlock” by itself if that is still a thing.
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hmmm
including key arguments that Google’s exclusive contracts with phone manufacturers allegedly harmed competitors.
