Trial Against Google Begins In US

Google is in the “felon’s dock” in the USA on charges of violating antitrust regulations. The tech giant and popular search engine, born in 1998, whose history coincides with the massive expansion of the web, is accused of “stifling competition.”

Google has been criticized for acquiring the right to be the default search engine on numerous devices, from Apple iPhone to Samsung, LG smartphones, etc. As a result, customers use Google rather than alternative search engines. The lawsuit was brought by the Justice Department while Donald Trump was still president, and the trial began on September 12 in Washington. The current Democratic administration has convincingly continued what the Republicans started in the previous legislative cycle.

Attention to this process is especially great because these weeks could determine not only the future of Google, but the development of the Internet as a whole and ways of searching for information. The situation is delicate for the USA itself, because while on the one hand, it is necessary to regulate “Big Tech” and its monopolistic practices, on the other hand, it implies acting against a giant that is worth 1700 billion dollars (more than the GDP of Spain, to be precise). The question is, will the Sherman Act, passed in 1890 that worked in the US against monopolies and cartels in the tobacco, oil and gas, steel sectors… will it work in the more complex world of the tech giants of Silicon Valley?

According to the Justice Department, Google prevented free competition by paying $45 billion a year to various device manufactures to make its search engine the default search engine. This not only disadvantages competitors, but also reinforces market dominance by reducing real choice and also discouraging innovation.

Prosecution lawyers, as reported by Italian economic newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore, argue that “during the lawsuit against Microsoft, Google argued that Microsoft’s actions were anti-competitive. However, Google is now using the same scheme to support its own monopolies.” The aforementioned Microsoft set the most significant precedent in the industry: in 1998, the company founded by Bill Gates was accused of illegally using the advantages of offering the most widespread operating system to impose the Explorer browser to the detriment of Netscape, among others.

Google currently has over 90% market share in the USA, with 2022 revenue of $283 billion. The Mountain View giant’s CEO, Sundar Pichai, defends himself by saying, first of all, that the search engines on smartphones can be freely modified by user and that the “environment” was not created to prevent competitors from developing, as they actually did, albeit with residual market shares.